The Red Team
by Wandergirl108
Summary: Fifth installment in my series, directly follows "Red Dawn Light". Red John is dead, and Jane and his team are celebrity-level heroes. Jane has to get used to his new freedom, Lisbon has to learn to handle the person this freedom turns him into, and some of Red John's friends are getting restless. The potential for chaos is infinite…
1. Roll Out the Red Carpet

Jane was already lying on his couch when Rigsby, Cho, and Van Pelt arrived at work early. He greeted them cheerfully…almost a bit _too_ cheerfully, they thought.

"What's gotten into you?" Rigsby asked. taking his place at his desk.

"Red John is dead and gone," Jane replied, grinning; "why should I be anything but happy?"

And they all couldn't help but return his smile. Yes, Red John _was_ dead and gone, and thank heavens for that. No more chasing him. No more waiting for more bodies to turn up. No more wondering who to trust, what his next move would be…Nope. All over.

This would take some getting used to.

Lisbon was the tiniest bit late; she needed a little extra time to prepare herself to not see Jane at work. Still, she soon walked in.

"Hey, everyone," she was already saying, "sorry to tell you, Jane-"

"Oh, hey, Lisbon!" Jane said happily.

Lisbon froze. She blinked at him three times, quickly, as though trying to clear her vision.

"…What are you doing here?" she finally managed to ask.

"Uh, I work here," Jane chuckled.

"No you don't!" she said. "You work in Quantico now - with the BAU!"

"Oh, I see," Jane said as he understood what the problem was. "Nah. I turned them down."

Lisbon blinked. "You did what?" she asked dumbly.

"I turned them down," Jane repeated. "I mean, it was flattering and all, and I guess it would be cool to be on their team, but…well, I belong _here_. I know my place, and my place is right here on this couch."

"I…You…" Lisbon couldn't think for a minute.

Jane laughed. "Lisbon, it's not _that_ hard to believe. Is it?"

And then her brain started working again, and she quickly realized several things at once. Her eyes widened. "Oh, no," she said under her breath.

"What?" asked Van Pelt, confused.

"I'm guessing she's thinking of what a big deal I am in the media now," Jane told Van Pelt, "and everywhere else besides. For the record, Lisbon, I promised myself I wouldn't abuse my status. I'll promise you that, too. I do. Promise that, I mean."

"Thanks," Lisbon said faintly.

"Are you _that_ big a deal?" Rigsby asked, surprised.

"Oh come on, Rigsby," Jane said, craning his neck to look at his teammate, "I know you and Van Pelt didn't get out much, but didn't you bother turning on the TV every once in a while?"

"Jane, shut up!" Rigsby hissed.

"_What_?" Jane asked. "Nothing can break up our team - it wouldn't be allowed. We're _all_ a big deal now; I'm just the focal point."

"Yeah, they're calling us the 'Red Team'," Cho added.

"See? Cho's been paying attention," Jane smiled.

"The 'Red Team'," Lisbon repeated. "The Team of Death. Lovely."

"Well, you know, the 'Green Team' sounds like some big ecology movement deal," Jane shrugged, still grinning. "The point is, none of us can be fired or transferred anywhere under any circumstances. Certain rules…" He looked back at Rigsby again. "…no longer apply to us."

Lisbon's brow furrowed in concern - Jane seemed a little _too_ carefree. "Are you okay?" she asked him.

He turned his grin on her. "Never better," he said. "Red John is dead and gone, why would I be anything but okay?"

"You just seem a little…uh…"

"Too happy," Cho inserted.

"Can I not be happy about being rid of Red John?" Jane asked, laughing.

It was then that Lisbon noticed that Jane's left ring finger was bare. Before she could comment on it, though, Bertram came to greet them.

"Well, well, if it isn't the team of heroes," he said, almost sarcastically. "Good."

"Uh, Director Bertram, sir, is there a problem?" Lisbon asked.

Jane chuckled. "How many boxes, chief?" he asked.

Bertram blinked and looked at him. "What?"

"How many boxes?" Jane repeated.

"Of what?" Bertram asked.

Jane grinned. "You know what I'm talking about."

Bertram sighed. "Sadly, yes I do," he said. "And to answer your question, three."

Jane sat up. "Seriously?" he asked, still smiling. "There's a reason I told everyone about our vacation the night Red John died."

"Well, I hate to think what the load would be if you _hadn't_, then," Bertram said.

"What's going on?" asked Lisbon.

"Like I said, we're a big deal," Jane said. "Price of fame is being famous…and being famous cops is the worst." He said all of this without dropping the smile for even a second.

And Lisbon fully realized just exactly what he meant only a split second before Bertram had someone cart three boxes of case files into the room.

"All yours," Bertram said.

"That much in just two weeks?" Jane asked, raising an eyebrow and still smiling. "Wow."

"Get to work," Bertram said gruffly, and he left.

The team stared at the pile of boxes.

"We're going to have to do _all_ _that_?" Lisbon asked faintly.

"Well, _I_ will," Jane told her; "the majority of that is just pointless stuff so people can meet me - a lot of them will even be false reports, just to see if I can tell with my super mind powers or whatever people think I have." He chuckled as he stood up and walked over to the boxes. "Most of this stuff is stuff I can just take care of in five minutes - not worth you guys' time. Hang on, I'll sort through it all, see if there's anything you should even bother yourselves with." And he picked up the boxes, brought them back over to his couch, opened the first one, and grabbed a file.

Lisbon, Rigsby, Cho, and Van Pelt stared at Jane in silent astonishment as he glanced through file after file, muttering things like "Fake" "Easy" "Simple" before tossing them aside. And he wouldn't stop grinning! It was almost creepy.

Also, "not worth you guys' time"? That was an interesting way of wording it… "stuff I don't need your help with" was more like what they would have expected from Jane.

Jane finished a whole box, and not one of the files had particularly caught his attention. He swept them all back into the box, set it aside, opened the next one, and continued.

"Jane?"

"M?" He looked up.

"What are all these cases, exactly?" Lisbon asked.

He shrugged (and wouldn't stop smiling!). "Inconsequential stuff, mostly, whether they're real or fake," he replied. "Stuff like robberies, break-ins…pointless stuff."

"We're _homicide_ investigators," Lisbon said. "Why would anything like that even be in there?"

"The only homicide reports I've found so far have been laughably fake," Jane said, still going through files. "And like I said, we're a big deal now - people will insist on _us_ looking into whatever problems they might have, not accept help from anyone else. Well," he amended, "most of them want _my_ help - they just think of you guys as my sidekicks or something stupid like that."

Lisbon blinked. Not only was that last comment weird, but Jane's smile hadn't wavered during that entire speech. "Are you _sure_ you're okay?" she asked him.

"Are you going to keep asking me that all day?" Jane asked, his smile only widening.

She got a feeling he was half-hoping she'd challenge him to the question game, but she had never been less in the mood. She said nothing.

He looked up. "Lisbon, I have never been more okay," he told her seriously. "You worry too much."

Lisbon wanted to believe him. She really, truly did. It would be _wonderful_ if things were to go back to normal except better, without the issue of Red John hanging over all their heads. She would have liked that more than anything. But something about Jane's almost fixed smile set off alarm bells in her head, ones she had learned not to ignore long ago. Something was going to go wrong, she knew it beyond any doubt.

"Oh, okay, here we go," Jane said suddenly. "Found one."

"Give it here," Lisbon said.

Then Jane laughed. "I'm just kidding," he said; "this one's fake, too." And he tossed it aside.

Lisbon had no words.

Two files later, however, Jane _did_ find a case worthy of the whole team. He set it aside even as Lisbon reached for it, though, already back to sorting through the files; apparently, he wanted to do this all at once.

There was one more set aside from the second box, and three in the third box. Five cases worth investigating, out of dozens. Still quite a few to handle at the same time, but with the alternative sitting right in front of their faces, it seemed manageable.

The five cases were pretty standard for the team investigating them. Jane did his thing, as always, typically pissing people off in the process; but unlike before Red John's demise, he didn't seem like he was even _trying_ not to get in trouble - if anything, he was trying _to_ get into trouble. He was too carefree, too reckless even for him…It was like nothing really mattered anymore, like the world was just one big joke to him. To 'laugh in the face of danger' is supposed to mean being brave, but in Jane's case, it just meant being downright _stupid_. More than once, Lisbon actually, genuinely thought that he was going to die; her role in the cases became chasing him around, constantly trying to save his ass.

The cases were closed, of course, but the results were sloppy even for Jane, and he'd taken far too many stupid, pointless risks to close them. Lisbon ordered him to speak with her privately after the others had gone home after the five cases were done - she couldn't let this continue, not as his boss, and not as his friend.

"Jane, what the hell is wrong with you?" she asked right off the bat.

"_Nothing_!" he insisted.

"No, _something_ is wrong with you," Lisbon countered. "Do you have any idea how many times you nearly died since we came back to work?"

He shrugged, still smiling. "I lost count around ten."

Lisbon put a hand over her face, almost completely fed up. "Jane, you can't do this," she told him. "If I can't take my eyes off you for five seconds without you almost getting yourself shot, there's a problem."

"Why?" Jane asked.

She looked up at him again; this was a _very_ odd thing for him to say. "What do you mean, 'why'?" she demanded.

He shrugged. "Why is that a problem?" he asked.

Lisbon blinked. "Jane…do you _want_ to die?" This was something she had never considered, but now that she thought about it, Jane _had_ lived to hate Red John, just as Red John had lived to hate Jane; with Red John dead, did he really have any other reason to go on?

He shrugged. "Well, it doesn't really matter if I do," he said. "I won't be leaving anything behind unfinished. With Red John dead, I can do whatever I want."

And suddenly, Lisbon understood. He was like a teenager who just got their driver's license and would drive into town several times a day for no reason other than that they can. He was taking stupid risks _specifically_ because he_ could_, without any worries.

But _she_ worried.

She took a breath. "Yes, Jane, it _would_ matter if you died," she told him.

"Why?" he asked again. "I don't care."

"_I_ care!" she shouted, walking over to get in his face now, completely at her wit's end. "_I_ care about you! _I_ care if you die! If you don't give a damn about yourself anymore, at least be considerate of the people around you who care about you!"

And finally, _finally_, Jane's smile went away.

For a moment, they faced off silently.

Then, Jane sighed, seeming to deflate slightly. "You're right," he said. "I'm sorry. I just…I'm not used to this freedom, you know? Red John has chained me down for so long, I…"

Lisbon nodded. "I understand," she said, more gently now. "And that's fine. I'm happy for you that you don't have that freak holding you back anymore. Just, please, try not to get killed? If not for yourself, then for me? You almost scared me to death five times today alone; I can't do my job if I'm constantly worrying about you."

He looked at her. "I'm sorry," he repeated softly; there was something strange in his eyes. "I didn't…I didn't mean to worry you. I wasn't thinking."

Again, she nodded. "Well, please do think from now on," she said. "You'll be better at catching bad guys if you do, anyway."

He gave a half-humorless chuckle that quickly faded.

There was nothing more to say, but neither of them moved. Their eyes were locked, as they had been across the parking lot the night of Red John's demise, but they were closer this time, only a few inches apart…and…neither was quite sure what the other was trying to say…

Lisbon didn't even realize she was leaning into him…She closed her eyes…and their lips met.

There was no thinking, no reasoning. Slowly, the kiss deepened, as their mouthes opened against each other, he put his arms around her…she returned his embrace-

Suddenly, Lisbon found herself being shoved backwards as Jane quickly pushed her away. She caught her balance and looked at him. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, his eyes wide with something akin to fear as he stared at her.

_Fear_? Of all the possible things to feel right now…

Slowly, he started shaking his head, not taking his eyes off of her, almost as though he was afraid she would make a sudden movement. He backed away from her and into the hall, slowly at first, then he turned and started going faster, glanced behind him at her one last time, then took off at a dead sprint, trying to get away.

Lisbon didn't even have time to react before he was gone.

She stood rooted to the spot, blinking with shock._ What the hell just happened? _she wondered. She wasn't sure which part she was questioning…_all_ of it, maybe. But…just…_What the hell_?

Used to having someone outside of work to talk to now, she had her cell phone out and she was just about to press the call button before she stopped…No, this wasn't something Charlie needed to know about. Lisbon wasn't in the mood for smug "I told you so"s, and she wasn't even sure what had just happened anyway.

~o~

Of course, someone was always watching.

"Well, well," Dove said, "this _is_ a development. What are you planning to do about it, Jane…?" Ideas were forming, breaking, and reforming in her head, and she began to get a picture of the perfect future, the one she and all of Red John's remaining friends would have to work to bring about.

She closed her eyes. _I do _not_ look forward to telling Rich about this…_


	2. Broken Hearts All Around

As predicted, Rich was ballistic when Dove gathered everyone and told them the news.

"You still want us to wait?!" he shouted at her. "Just sit back and wait while he gets his life back?!"

"I wasn't thinking of it that way, but now that you mention it, that sounds like a good idea," Dove said coolly.

"Oh, well, sure, let's let him get his life back, then," Rich said sarcastically. "Wait for him to get remarried, father another child-"

"The more you talk, the more I like the sounds of that idea," Dove told him.

Rich blinked. "What - I - you - you _want_ that?" he exclaimed.

"Tell me, I'm curious," Dove said in reply, "what do _you_ want to do, Rich?"

"Kill the bastard!" Rich snarled.

"And what do you think that will accomplish?" Dove asked.

"Wh-?" Rich shook his head, confused by her question. "It would avenge all the insult and injury he did to RJ!"

"And is that all?" Dove asked pointedly.

Rich's blinked.

Dove sighed. "Rich, I can't help but think that your reaction might be based in part on jealousy," she said. "With Patrick Jane dead, you could have Saint all to yourself, yes?"

"It is _not_ like that," Rich asserted.

"Is it true you slept with her?" Dove countered.

"I - you -!" He waved his finger in a violent, albeit vague, gesture. "That is _not_ relevant," he finally managed. "This has _nothing_ to do with Saint!"

"Oh doesn't it?" Dove asked sarcastically. She folded her arms. "I'm sorry, but I know you a little too well to believe that."

Rich glowered at her. "I just want to avenge - _and serve_ - RJ," he told her. "If that means killing Patrick Jane before the woman that _RJ_ loved marries him or whatever, I'll do it. RJ wouldn't want her to be with that moron."

Dove sighed and took a step closer to him; she had taken him aside to hear his tirade in private, but some people might still be listening in.

"Rich, I'm going to tell you a secret," she said in a low voice, "and I need you to promise me on Red John's grave that you will _never_ tell _anyone_, not even other friends."

"Sure," Rich said, a bit taken aback. "I swear on RJ's grave, I won't tell a soul."

Dove nodded. She glanced around nervously, leaned in a bit closer, and confessed in a very soft voice, "I was in love with RJ."

Rich's sharp intake of breath was more than enough of a response.

"I know, I know!" she said quickly. "Please don't comment. But what I want you to know is that I understand how you feel."

Rich blinked.

"I thought that RJ just…didn't want a life partner, never would," she told Rich. "I didn't think he _could_ love, at least not in that way." Her expression darkened. "And then Saint happened," she said bitingly. "My Dear Little Saint this, My Dear Little Saint that - you heard how he couldn't shut up about her! I was the first of us, I'd been by his side the longest, I loved him and would have given my soul and more for him, and I was just a friend; but he was _infatuated_ with the woman who was _in_ _charge_ of the investigation to _take_ _him_ _down_, a woman who hated his guts! Can you imagine how I felt?"

Rich deflated slightly, his sheepish expression more than answer enough.

"But I don't want her dead," Dove said; "never have, probably never will. Because I can't control who RJ loved, any more than _you_ can control who _Saint_ loves." She gave him a look. "Do you understand?"

Rich sighed, then nodded. "I understand," he said grudgingly.

"Besides, if there's one thing to be learned from RJ, it's that death is far from the worst punishment that can be exacted on a person," Dove added, cracking a bit of a sinister smile. "Let Jane get his life back, let him build a new world, let him find happiness, and _then_ take it from him. That's what RJ would do, and that's what we're probably going to do. In the meantime, _stand_ _down_. Do I make myself clear?"

Rich nodded again. "Yes, ma'am."

~o~

The trip home was a blur for Jane; he was through his front door without the faintest memory of his frantic rush to get home. He was panting, that much he knew.

_What the hell just happened?_

He put his face in his hands. Did he just kiss Lisbon? Like, _actually_ kiss her? Did that actually happen? How could that have possibly happened? _Did_ that happen?

_Well, you ran home for _some_ reason,_ whispered a treacherous voice at the back of his mind, a voice he pretended not to recognize as his own, as he ran his fingers through his hair.

He shook his head. No. No, no, no. Freedom was one thing, but _this_…this was too much. He'd _had_ a family once, had his soul mate, his life partner, _a_ life…

_"Find a woman to love…Start a family…"_

_"When you're dead."_

He tried to push that particular memory aside. He'd made enough of a mess with Kristina…

Kristina, who had only wanted to hurt him, remind him of his past on Red John's behalf…Thinking of her was painful now, but he couldn't not - she was his one slip in his devotion to his family.

_But it's time to move on with your life,_ that same voice told him, and he couldn't ignore it.

"No," he said out loud. "No, this will _not_ happen."

~o~

Jane couldn't sleep that night, instead pacing back and forth all over the place. He tried lying down sometimes, but always immediately stood up again. He felt…_dirty_, like he'd done something horrible, something unforgivable. A small part of him wondered if maybe he hadn't done anything wrong at all, but he refused to listen to that corner of his mind. No. He had _one_ family. Yes, they were dead and gone, and yes, he'd had his wedding ring destroyed, and _yes_, he'd said he would move on with his life, but he couldn't just _forget_ them!

Then, after several hours of pacing, something else occurred to him:

_Did I turn down the BAU and stay here because of Lisbon?_

And with that thought, he had absolutely had enough. He had to move, had to _do_ something.

He was out the door before he even asked himself where he was going.

~o~

Brett Partridge was up late that night, watching the news. At least it didn't look like Patrick Jane was any less stupid now than he had been before.

He still couldn't believe it. Red John, more than human, impossibly smart, powerful, strong, resourceful…_gone_. And he never got to see his work in person. Twice, he had thought he would, and twice, he'd had his dream shattered by the ever-so-gifted Patrick Jane.

He sighed. Being one of Red John's pets - the last of them, now, if he understood correctly - had been a lot of fun, but he'd really wanted to see his hero's work _in the flesh_. And now he never would. Red John had never skimped on the gory details of his kills, but Brett wished, _so much_, that he could actually _picture_ it, have a real visual reference for when he fantasized…

Suddenly, there was a knock on his door. Confused, he turned off the TV and answered it.

Standing outside his home was a man he had never met.

"Hey, pet," the man said; "er, I mean, Brett."

Brett blinked. "Do I know you?" he asked, confused.

"No. But I know you, or at least _of_ you," the man replied. He smiled and held out a hand. "Rich," he introduced himself. "I'm one of RJ's friends."

Brett shook his hand, nodding thoughtfully. "So," he said, "one of you finally decided to come and see me. I was expecting the new boss lady, whoever she is…"

"You've never met Dove?" Rich asked, apparently surprised.

Brett shook his head. "I never met _any_ of you," he replied; "RJ never even told me any of your names - except for Dove, obviously, but he didn't tell me anything _about_ her." He shrugged. "RJ just told me you guys existed; I was never meant to be part of the network."

Rich nodded. "May I come in?" he asked.

"Please," Brett said, opening the door wider. As Rich passed him, he said, "You know, I'm a CSI, but I never did get to see RJ's work in person." He closed the door. "I saw smiley faces drawn in blood - _twice_ - but both were copycats, and never did I see the real deal." He scowled. "Patrick Jane was always the one who had the pleasure of crushing my dream," he muttered.

"So you're not too fond of Jane?" Rich asked in an odd tone of voice.

"I hate the bastard," Brett spat. "I know you're not supposed to shoot the messenger, but he at least could have been nicer about it."

Rich smiled. _Perfect._

~o~

The sky was just starting to brighten with pre-dawn light when Patrick Jane walked through the cemetery carrying fourteen red roses. He separated one from the bundle and set it down in front of his daughter's grave, then knelt in front of the tombstone that marked his wife's resting place.

"I'm sorry," he whispered out loud. He knew it was stupid, pointless, all of it, but…

He set down the bouquet. Thirteen red roses. It's a little-known fact that a dozen red roses actually symbolizes _friendship_, and _thirteen_ means love.

Jane sighed. _What am I doing?_ he asked himself.

He couldn't answer.

"You'd know what I'm doing," he murmured out loud. "You'd understand what's going on in my head, and you'd know what I should do about it. You always knew best…I never listened to you while you were alive, but if I had, things would be so different…I wish I could now…"

Suddenly, the wind picked up. He smiled wistfully, thinking of how, if he was doing a psychic reading of some sort, he would say that signified that the spirit of the departed was there, trying to speak to him.

But that would be stupid.

He reached out and put a hand on the tombstone. Why? He didn't know. He wasn't entirely sure he was even thinking at all.

No sooner did his hand grip the stone than he felt a sharp pinch on his palm. Quickly, he jerked his hand back; had he just put his hand on a rough spot or something? He reached out and ran his fingers over the spot that had bitten him.

Nothing.

_Oh, no._

The wind gusted even stronger.

_Oh, no no no no._

The flowers on the ground shook in the breeze.

Then, the wind caught one of the roses - just one - and carried it away. Jane watched it go dumbly.

_No._

He stood, shaking his head slightly, as he had done earlier that night, trying to deny what was in front of him. Then, as he had earlier that night, he turned and ran, as fast as he could, far away from the impossible, the insane.

_No._


	3. Tons of Red Tape

Lisbon wasn't sure what the next day would bring. A new case, probably, and…Jane? What the hell had happened last night, anyway? Should she acknowledge it? Should she be embarrassed? How should she treat him?

As it turned out, her worries didn't matter, because when she came in for work, Jane was absent. Rigsby, Cho, and Van Pelt were ready at their desks, but there was absolutely no sign of Patrick Jane.

"Has anyone seen Jane?" she asked.

A chorus of "no"s came from the members of her team.

"Which is weird," Rigsby added; "I mean, he's _always_ here now."

"Yeah," Lisbon said absentmindedly. "Weird." _And probably not a coincidence,_ she added in her mind.

Her phone rang then. She checked the caller ID, and who else would it be but Patrick Jane? She picked up.

"Jane, where are you?" she half-demanded.

"Home," came his reply; he sounded a bit off. "Listen, I, uh…" He trailed off, apparently hesitant to say something.

There was silence for an awkward minute.

"…Are you going to come to work?" Lisbon finally asked.

"Uh, no, I, uh…" He gave a nervous laugh. "I'm sorry, I just don't really know how to do this."

"Do what?"

"How do I call in sick?"

"Sick?" Lisbon repeated incredulously. "You sound fine to me."

"Yeah, right _now_ I do," Jane practically grumbled.

Lisbon blinked but decided not to pursue the issue. "And besides, you don't get sick," she said instead.

"Well, okay, I'm not _physically_ ill," he told her. "It's just that…I, uh…think I'm losing my mind."

Despite everything, Lisbon couldn't help laughing. "So what else is new?" she teased.

But Jane wasn't joking. "No, Lisbon, I mean I really, genuinely think I'm going clinically insane," he told her seriously.

Lisbon't smile faltered.

"Look, I just need a day to see if I can straighten my mind out," Jane said pleadingly. "If I can't get myself together by tomorrow, I'll check myself into a mental hospital."

Lisbon blinked. "Jane, you…you _hate_ mental hospitals," she said, surprised. "You hate shrinks. You hate _doctors_!"

"Yes," he said, "yes I do."

Lisbon sighed. "Look, Jane, remember what we talked about just last night?" _Oh god, why did I have to put it like that?_

"How could I forget?" he responded in a strange tone of voice she couldn't read.

"Yeah, not helping," she told him.

"I love you, too."

Lisbon gave a very slow, stunned blink. What? He didn't mean…?

"Okay, you see, _that_," Jane said abruptly; "that right there is what I'm talking about."

"What?" Lisbon asked, completely baffled.

"I wasn't joking," he told her, and her heart leapt. "And, quite honestly, that scares me."

"Oh. Yeah, I…I see the problem," she lied; in fact, what he was saying made less than zero sense to her. But then again, maybe that _was_ the problem, or at least a sign that there really was a problem to be concerned about…

"Alright," Jane said. "You'll hear from me tomorrow one way or the other. Good luck making any progress on the new case, whatever it is."

"I think we can handle a case without you for a day, Jane," Lisbon said teasingly.

"Oh, you're more than capable of doing your job, I know," Jane said; "the problem is, the other people involved might not let you."

"What do you mean?" Lisbon asked.

Static crackled over the line as Jane sighed. "Look, just do what you can, hopefully I'll be back tomorrow to deal with whatever stupid civilian obsessions might come up."

"Jane, what are you going to do?" Lisbon asked. "Today, I mean?"

"I told you," he replied; "try to get my brain straightened out. Not really sure how I'm going to go about doing that, but a full day should be enough to figure it out. I hope. Maybe."

Lisbon bit back her retorts and said, "Is there maybe some way you could…I don't know…like, hypnotize yourself or something?" she suggested. "I mean, if you need to sort out your own head, you have to know what's in it…" She had no idea what she was talking about, truth be told.

"No, I can't hypnotize myself," Jane said, "but that _does_ remind me of something I _can_ do…Huh. That may very well work. Thank you, Lisbon, I may owe you my sanity."

"More like you owe me _my_ sanity," she teased. "Alright, I'll let you get to it. Good luck."

"Same to you," Jane said, and they hung up.

Lisbon stared at her phone for a minute.

_What the hell just happened?_

"So what's the deal?" Van Pelt asked.

Lisbon forced a smile. "Jane's taking a day off," she told them, "says he thinks he's going clinically insane. He'll be back tomorrow or not at all, according to him."

"Clinically insane?" Rigsby repeated.

"Yeah, I know," Lisbon said, rolling her eyes. "But he has just as much right to take a sick day as any of us, and he's never taken one before, so…I can't order him to come in." _Plus I don't want him to be around if he's really that crazy._

_…Crazy enough to kiss me…?_

~o~

After he hung up, Jane closed his eyes and sighed heavily. Why did it have to be this way? At least while he was chasing Red John he'd known who he was and what he had to do; now, his brain was a mess. He couldn't even trust himself to think or feel the same thing in any two given seconds. He felt detached, and helpless, and so, _so_ very _confused_.

_Relax,_ he told himself, as he had told others so many times. _Relax…clear your mind…_

_Where do you most want to be right now? Where are you most comfortable?…Don't force it, let your mind wander wherever it wants to go…_

He took some deep breaths as he let his mind drift, touching on place after place in his mind, some real, some not, but none of them felt right.

What did he enjoy most? Where was he most at home? If he could be anywhere, anywhere at all, where would he choose to go?

Slowly, a setting came to him…a backdrop of voices, conversations all around him…phones ringing, some near, some distant…people coming and going, constantly, all with different purposes…and his own little corner of it all.

His couch in HQ.

Weird, that work would be where he felt the most relaxed, but it felt right. _Don't question it,_ he told himself. _Just envision it…_

It wasn't too difficult to picture himself there - he was already sitting on a couch, anyway, and work was so familiar to him. Between that and his gift, the gift that let him see everything there was to see, he could picture it clearly, every detail - not quite razor-sharp, but vivid enough.

When he felt that he had a good hold on the place in his mind, he started searching the picture. _Now look for a person, a living being of any sort - it doesn't even have to be human, just someone or something you can talk to._

The CBI was always full of people coming and going, but in his head, all the people were blurry, more background entities than people. No, wait, there was one person he could see clearly. A woman with long hair, sitting at Van Pelt's desk, her back to him. But it wasn't Van Pelt…

In his mind, he stood up and walked over to the woman.

"Hello?" he asked her.

She stood, then turned around. At the sight of her face, rendered clearly, his breath caught; he almost lost the image.

"Angie…"

Angela smiled at him.

He stared for a minute, then chuckled. "Of _course_ you would be my subconscious," he commented; "you always were my conscience."

"No, I just tried to _remind_ you of your conscience," she corrected. "You had a conscience long before you met me." She smiled again. "It's a bit more ironic that _work_ is where you feel most relaxed, don't you think?"

If Jane had had his eyes open, he would have blinked. "So even my subconscious has a sense of humor. Wonderful…" He gave himself a little shake, then asked her, "Is there anything you want to tell me?"

"Plenty," she said; "where should I start?"

He hesitated, searching for the right words.

"Am I…losing my mind?" he asked at last.

She smiled. "No," she told him, "quite the contrary - you're getting it _back_."

"I don't understand…"

"For ten years, you've built your life around one mission, one aim," Angela told him, "and anything that might interfere with or contradict your purpose, you pushed aside, locked away in the back of your mind and forgot about. Now Red John is gone, your purpose is fulfilled, so those things can matter now…but…"

She turned. Jane followed her eyes and saw a mass of over a dozen blurry people, all trying to get through a doorway at once. They were stuck, piling on top of each other and squished against each other, all trying to squeeze their way out.

"They're packed away tightly, and you're not helping them back into your mind," Angela said. "Sometimes, things will manage to force their way through, and they might do so at inconvenient times." She gestured. "Like last night."

One of the people suddenly burst through out of the pile, just in time to knock down someone who happened to be passing by with a box in their hands; papers flew everywhere.

"What happened last night?" Jane asked, looking back at her. "I don't understand any of what happened…"

"It's time to move on," she told him.

He shook his head. "That's not…"

"You _want_ to," she told him. "As your subconscious, I'm telling you: You _do_ want to move on, start again, _love_ again."

"But can I?"

She smiled. "You already do."

"What do I need to do?" he asked her.

"You need to reconsider every aspect of your life from your new perspective - the perspective you can afford to have now, _without_ Red John weighing you down," she replied. "Think through things carefully, and consider the implications of everything you find in your head. There are decisions you need to make that may well alienate those close to you."

"Why?" he asked, confused.

"It's _your_ job to figure that out," she told him. "You only gave yourself a day, so you should get started now."

He nodded. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me," Angela said; "I'm you." She smiled. "Open your eyes now."

He did, and all at once, he was back at home, completely alone.

He let out a deep breath, then put his hands over his face, rubbing his eyes. _Is it _supposed_ to be that vivid?_ he wondered. _It almost felt real…_

_…Don't question it. You have a direction to go now, so take it._

~o~

Without Jane to tell them if a report was false or not, Lisbon's team had to take the first case a member of the general public demanded they take, operating under the assumption that it was legitimate. Today, this was a couple whose daughter had gone missing, and who were demanding that Patrick Jane be the one to help them, refusing help from any other team, even though Jane's team's job was homicide investigation.

Of course, Patrick Jane himself couldn't answer the call. Lisbon took her whole team with her to speak with the couple, Jane's warning about what people might and might not let her do fresh in her mind, praying that the four of them together would be enough for people who already clearly were obsessed with Jane.

The worried parents were waiting outside for the team to arrive, and they came running as soon as the car parked. Everyone got out, Lisbon introduced herself and her team…and right away, the mother said, "Where's Patrick Jane?"

"Patrick Jane couldn't make it to work today," Lisbon told the woman as casually as possible.

"But…" The woman looked at her husband with wide eyes. He appeared equally alarmed.

They turned back to Lisbon. "We need Patrick Jane's help."

"He couldn't come to work today," Lisbon repeated. "Hopefully, he'll be back tomorrow, but right now, the rest of us will do what we can."

"No," the woman shook her head, wild-eyed. She hesitated, looked back at her husband (who was holding her by this point), then turned back and shook her head again. "No, we need Patrick Jane's help."

"Well, I'm afraid you're going to have to settle for us for today," Lisbon said, getting very annoyed.

"No, we'll wait," the woman said, again glancing back at her husband, who again wordlessly agreed with her. "We'll wait for Patrick Jane. You said he'll be back tomorrow?"

"Ma'am, I was under the impression that this was a missing persons case," Lisbon said. "Your daughter?"

"Yes," the woman said.

"You are aware that missing persons cases are urgent?" Lisbon half-asked pointedly. "The longer we go without your cooperation, the less likely we'll be to find her alive."

The woman's eyes widened even further, but still, she and her husband shook their heads. "No, Patrick Jane will find her alive," she said. "We'll wait for him."

Underneath her frustration, Lisbon was thoroughly confused. "Why is Patrick Jane such a big deal?" she asked. "My team and I have worked with him for ten years, and we can do our job - he's technically not even a cop! How could you possibly justify waiting for his help, especially if the problem is that your daughter's gone missing?"

"Patrick Jane is a hero," the woman said, her voice shaking, her eyes still wide, but her expression certain. "There's nothing he can't do, nothing at all. He works miracles. He can bring our daughter back alive, wherever she might be. We'll wait for his help."

Lisbon sighed. "Ma'am, are you aware that filing a false report with the police is a crime in and of itself?"

"What does that have to do with this?" the woman asked, seeming genuinely confused. Lisbon became worried - if this wasn't a false report, a teenage girl's life was at stake and her own parents were refusing to cooperate with the police.

_Jane said he was a big deal now,_ she thought, _and even Charlotte's told me what a sensation he is in the media, but I never thought it would be quite _this_ bad. If Jane's celebrity status is going to put lives at risk, something needs to be done about it. As for right now…_

"There's a chance Patrick Jane might not ever be able to return to work," she told the couple. "Either he'll be back tomorrow, or he won't be back at all, and right now, both of those situations are equally likely."

"We'll wait." The words came, not from the mother this time, but from the father, who was, if anything, even more certain than his wife. "Come back tomorrow, with or without him, but we'll wait to see if he can help us."

"He can't help you _today_!" Lisbon said, raising her voice as though that would help the couple understand how stupid they were being. "_We_ can! Please let us do our job!"

Husband and wife shook their heads simultaneously, both wearing the same certain, closed expression. "We're not doing anything until Patrick Jane comes," the woman said.

Lisbon didn't try to resist rolling her eyes, but she turned around. "Come on," she told her team, "there's nothing we can do here."

Rigsby, Cho, and Van Pelt had been silent during the entire argument, and in fact, they had no idea what to think, never mind what to say. Lisbon had had a bit of a heads-up thanks to her sister's position in the media, but none of the rest of the team had imagined that Jane was _this_ big a deal - that anyone even _could_ be this big of a deal!

They drove back to HQ in silence. When they were there, Rigsby finally spoke.

"What now?" he asked.

"We do what we can without their cooperation," Lisbon answered; "we can look into people's backgrounds, see if we can find any evidence that the report they filed is false."

"What if it's not?" asked Cho.

Lisbon sighed. "I'd rather not think about that," she said, almost under her breath, as she got out of the car.

~o~

"That's all you want me to do?"

Rich had made his request of partnership with Red John's last pet, Brett Partridge. Brett was very surprised by his instructions.

"Seriously?" he asked. "That's all I have to do, and you'll be able to take him down? Are you sure?"

Rich smiled and nodded. "That's all I need," he confirmed.

"Hell yeah, I can do that!" Brett exclaimed enthusiastically.

"The next time they close a case," Rich said.

Brett nodded. "Right." He couldn't help but give a little wriggle of excitement. "Oh, this is going to be so awesome!"

"Yes, it is," Rich agreed, almost under his breath, as he stood to go.

* * *

**For the record, the mental exercise I described Jane going through IS legitimate, though I don't think the results ARE supposed to be so vivid.**


	4. Cardinal Sins

Disturbingly, Lisbon and her team could find absolutely no indication whatsoever that the case they had been assigned was a false report, though they did nothing but search until they went home that night. Jane didn't call, and Lisbon didn't want to call him - what would she say, anyway? 'We need your help, please tell me you're coming back'? No. The danger of this super-celebrity status was already threatening to go to his head, and she didn't want to encourage it - it was her job to keep him as grounded as possible, as it always had been. Still, she prayed he would fix his head and come back to work.

Lisbon half-dreaded what she would find when she came in to work the next day, but there was Patrick Jane, ready and waiting for them.

"You're back," Lisbon observed.

"Yeah," he said, "I'm sorry about yesterday, I was just kind of confused about something…I'm okay now."

"I'm glad to hear it," Lisbon said half-mockingly.

"So what did I miss?" he asked.

Lisbon gave him the file. "Couple filed a missing persons report for their fourteen-year-old daughter, we can't find any evidence that the report was false, and they won't talk to anyone but you."

Jane looked through the papers as he listened. Then he looked up. "Did you tell them you would end up being the one to question them either way?"

Lisbon shrugged. "I tried to tell them that we were capable of doing our jobs, but they adamantly refused to talk to us because you weren't there," she told him.

"Their daughter is missing and they would rather wait for me to sort my brain out than get the best help there is right away?" There was something intense in Jane's eyes, something Lisbon had rarely seen there.

She nodded. "Yeah, that pretty much sums it up," she confirmed, "and like I said, we've tried, but we can't find any evidence that the report is fake."

"It doesn't look like it is, except for that," Jane said, almost to himself. He stood. "Let's go, then," he said; "enough time has been wasted as it is." And he started walking out without further pretense.

"Jane, I'll ride with you," Lisbon announced, going after him.

"Fair enough."

~o~

Of course, Lisbon regretted riding with Jane immediately, and not just because he drove like a maniac; it was incredibly awkward. Still, it was her job to look after the health and well-being of her team, and if nothing else, he was technically part of her team.

"Jane, what happened yesterday?" she asked at last.

"Uh…" He shook his head slightly. "I just…needed to think some things over." He glanced at her. "Like I said, I'm not used to this freedom."

She took a breath. "Look, was this all just about…" She couldn't say it. "…the thing?"

"What thing?"

"The…thing that happened? You know what I mean."

"Ah," he said. "No. No, there was a lot more to it than that."

"Do I want to know?"

"Probably not."

"Then I won't ask."

"That's smart of you."

There was a pause that wasn't awkward for the first few seconds. Then, out of nowhere, Jane looked over at Lisbon and said, "I'm sorry."

She blinked. "For what?"

"Just…" He bit his lip, as though there was something he wanted to say but he knew he shouldn't say it. This alarmed Lisbon more than any verbal response would have - since when did Patrick Jane care about whether or not he should say something? The man spoke his mind all the time, that was one of the main reasons being his boss was a nightmare.

"Just what?" she finally asked.

He sighed. "Look, I know I…make things hard for you sometimes," he said. "I need you to know that, no matter what happens, I…I never do anything without taking into account how it might affect you. Sometimes, that _does_ mean hurting you, but…only if the alternative would have worse consequences."

Lisbon stared at Jane. Since when did he talk like this? Since when did he _think_ like this? And… "Where is this coming from?" Lisbon asked.

He glanced at her. "Just…one of the things in my head I thought through yesterday," he said, but something about his tone made her think he might be lying, or at least only telling a half-truth.

"Should I be worried?" she asked.

"No," he said dismissively. "Don't worry. There's nothing to worry about."

"I'll hold you to that," Lisbon warned.

He nodded. "Fair enough."

And then they were there. Jane was the first out of the car; Lisbon and the others stayed behind him, since he was the one who had to get this thing started.

As before, the couple ran outside to greet their visitors. This time, however, they ran right up to Jane, and the wife grabbed his hand and shook it before he could even offer it.

"Mr. Jane, thank god you're here!" she exclaimed. "Please help us. Our daughter is missing, we don't-"

"Is it true that you didn't talk to the rest of the team yesterday because you were waiting for me?" Jane asked bluntly.

The woman froze mid-word, her mouth open. "I…well…yes," she replied. "Of course we waited for you. You're Patrick Jane! You're-"

"_Human_," Jane said firmly. "I'm not a miracle worker, I'm not a superhero, and you have no excuse for not talking to the rest of the team while I was out sick yesterday. I _really_ hope the report you filed is false, because if it's not - if you really prioritized meeting me over your daughter's well-being - then you don't deserve to be parents. You should be ashamed of yourselves."

Husband and wife blinked.

"Now here's how this is going to work," Jane told them sternly: "I am going to go inside and take a look around. Lisbon is going to ask you some questions, and you are going to answer them. The rest of the team will do their jobs, and you will let them." He shook his head, glaring at the couple in disgust. "To be honest, if the way you've handled this situation is any indication of what sort of parents you are, I wouldn't be surprised if your daughter ran away, and I certainly wouldn't blame her."

With that, he shouldered his way between them, for no apparent reason other than to shove them, and walked towards the house, leaving everyone else behind.

His team was left almost in as much shock as the civilians. After a minute, Lisbon gathered her wits and ran after him.

"Jane!"

He turned. She ran up to him.

"What the hell was that?" she demanded.

"Oh come on, Lisbon, don't pretend I said anything you didn't want to say to them yourself," Jane said.

"That may be, but-"

"But nothing," Jane said, cutting her off. "I can't antagonize them because they still worship me, and they needed _someone_ to tell them that they're being idiots." He shook his head. "Lisbon, I don't want my fame to cause problems any more than you do," he told her, surprising her.

She blinked.

He smiled. "You probably thought it would go to my head, didn't you?" he asked. He shook his head again. "No. This isn't something that should be encouraged, I'm fully aware of that."

She gave him a look. "Is this one of the things you figured out yesterday?" she asked.

"Yep," he replied, then he gestured behind her. "Now, ah, you have a job to do, and so do I; let's get to it."

~o~

With Jane having set the record straight, things finally got moving at a standard pace. They had been delayed twenty-four hours, which was undesirable to say the least, but at least things were progressing now.

Jane couldn't find any sign that the girl had run away of her own free will, nor did he believe that the couple had filed a false report. That left an accident or kidnapping, and Jane didn't have enough information to start out with to guess which was more likely.

There was, of course, another, more personal reason he was disgusted with the couple's stupidity: His own daughter was dead because of his carelessness. He knew what that felt like, and that two parents would risk that just for a chance to meet him and see him work was abhorrent; and regardless of the girl's fate, there was no chance the couple hadn't taken that risk knowingly.

Charlotte caught up with the team later that day, as she usually did - it _was_ her job to report on All Things Jane, after all, and she had covered their other cases since they had returned to work as well. The team had found that this could be an asset no less than it was a hinderance - it provided a window to the general public, one through which they could address people who might possibly know something useful. This, in turn, was a mixed blessing, as sometimes people would offer completely useless tips, even false leads.

When the 48-hour mark had passed and the case still wasn't closed - though they were making progress - Jane couldn't help taking a minute to curse the careless parents who had cut their time in half. This was something he couldn't afford to let happen again. He could tell the world via Charlotte, of course, but there was no guarantee people would listen…but…as the case drew to a close, an idea started to form in his mind…

~o~

At the end of the case, around noon of the next day, Jane was the one to deliver the message to the girl's parents, Charlotte in tow; he hadn't told her whether this would be a joyful reunion or a tearful tragedy.

"We found your daughter," he told them tonelessly. "She wasn't kidnapped; what happened to her was an accident. The worst kind of accident: Trapped, alone, and unable to call for help."

"Is she okay?" the mother asked worriedly, her husband holding her.

Jane shook his head. "I'm sorry," he told them. "We were too late."

"No…!"

Jane watched the mother break down, falling to her knees, crying, her husband beside her, without even the tiniest shred of pity.

"If you had just let Lisbon and the others do their job from the start, this wouldn't have happened," he told the sobbing woman coldly. "It was a very near thing - if we had been maybe an hour sooner, she would probably still be alive. Your daughter is dead only because you prioritized meeting me over her well-being."

"Stop!" the mother wailed.

"I will _not_ stop!" Jane spat. "I want you to remember this!"

"Have you no shame?" the husband demanded of him. "Why are you doing this?"

"I know what it's like to know that my child is dead because of my own carelessness," Jane said, and the man's eyes widened. "I know how badly it hurts. It's a wound nothing can fix. And I want you both to remember this moment, and all of _you_," he turned to Charlotte's camera, "to remember it as well. I am not worth risking someone's life. If you refuse help on the grounds that it's not me who's helping you, this might actually happen to one of you, and if it does, no one will forgive you, especially not yourselves."

"What…?" the mother choked, confused. "'Might'…?"

"Mom! Dad!"

Jane smiled and stepped out of the way as Lisbon released the girl to reunite with her parents. He let them hug and wail and cry, all far beyond words, for a minute. It _was_ a beautiful thing, and Jane was truly relieved that reality had actually been kinder than the alternative.

"Your daughter is the most valuable thing you have," he said after a minute.

The couple looked up at him, still holding their daughter tightly.

"Don't forget that again," he told them.

They wouldn't. He could see it - they would never make that mistake again. He knew they wouldn't. To know that one's own child is dead because of one's own carelessness is one of the most ultimate forms of agony, and he wouldn't wish it on anyone; now that these two had felt it, they would never be the same.

He walked away as Charlotte wrapped things up.

Lisbon approached him.

"That was a cruel thing to do," she told him.

He nodded. "I know," he said, "and thank you for playing your part anyway - being cruel was kind of the point. Mind you, I knew full well what I was going to put them through for less than a minute, you can't say I didn't."

"Still…people probably won't respect you as much now," she said.

He smiled. "So much the better, then," he said. "I don't want people to worship me, Lisbon. I'm not like that."

Funny, she had always thought he _was_ like that. But now…This person Jane had become now that Red John was gone was…well, different, but in a good way. She might even get used to this.

"I'm glad you took that day off," she told him.

He smiled. "Me too."

~o~

Of course, Jane's success - and message - were on live TV, so two certain people were paying special attention to it.

Rich was watching the report on TV when his cell phone rang; Brett Partridge was on the other end. Rich picked up.

"Are you seeing this?" Brett asked him.

"I'm seeing it," Rich replied; "what else would I be doing?"

Brett chuckled. "Yeah," he said. "Cold bastard, isn't he?"

"There's nothing that moron won't do," Rich agreed; "he deserves what's coming to him."

"Yeah, so, uh, about that," Brett said; "they closed a case. Do you want to do the thing tonight? Or should we wait until tomorrow?"

Rich thought for a minute. Charlotte was saying something into the camera, but in the background, he could see Jane and Lisbon talking…

"You know what?" he said. "Let's do it tonight."

"_Yes_!" Brett said excitedly, and Rich could almost see him fist-pumping in triumph.

Rich smiled. "I'll start setting up."

"Yeah, me too!"

"See you there."

"Bye."

They hung up. Rich put his phone away, and took one last look at the TV. Jane and Lisbon were still talking in the background…He had no idea what they were talking about, but they didn't seem to be fighting or otherwise disagreeing about something.

Then he saw Lisbon smile at Jane, and he shut the TV off.

Glowering, he stood up. Time to set things right, his vow to Dove on RJ's grave be damned. Surely, RJ would forgive him for doing what needed to be done…


	5. Bloody Murder

Case-closed pizza. One of the little traditions the team still held onto. In fact, if anything, they deserved it all the more now that closing a case inevitably also meant being a media sensation. People just didn't seem to get tired of them, especially Jane.

So it was that they were all together when the call came in that night. Cho answered it.

"Hey, yeah, I've got a body here, male DB, can't tell much more…honestly, we're out of our depth on this one. We'd appreciate the Red Team's help." Brett Partridge gave an address.

"We'll be right there." Cho hung up and turned to Lisbon. "Boss, homicide, CSIs are requesting our help," he told her.

"Well, at least they aren't asking for something other than our specialty," Lisbon said, sparing only the briefest of forlorn glances for her unfinished pizza. "Let's go."

"Now?" asked Van Pelt. "It's the middle of the night!"

"Yep," Lisbon said dryly. "Cho, what's the address?"

~o~

The address was right on the corner of Sacramento, on the very edge of where the big city buildings ended and smaller things began. No one thought much of it at the time, but it was also one of the most distant spots from any hospital it's possible to be in without actually leaving Sacramento.

There were already some CSI vehicles outside when the team of five arrived. The team of five got out of their cars and approached the run-down building, feeling like they'd done this before but otherwise not suspicious. Jane lagged behind, letting the 'real' cops lead the charge, just in case.

Suddenly, Van Pelt, who was right in front of Jane, thought she heard a soft "pfft!" sound, and Jane gave a strangled cry. She turned around to see him fall to his knees.

"Jane?" she exclaimed, running back to him.

The others turned and ran over to them as Jane sank to the ground on his front, making choked noises as though his lungs were damaged.

Lisbon crouched down in front of him. "Jane?"

He turned his head upwards with what looked like enormous effort. His hand suddenly reached out and grabbed hers.

"L…Lis…bon…" he choked, so soft she could barely hear him.

"What? Jane, what's going on?" Things were happening too fast for her to make any sense of anything. She leaned in closer, trying to hear him, his grip on her hand almost painful.

"I…I'm…s…s…sor…ry…" he managed. Then his grip went slack, and he passed out.

"Jane!" Lisbon tried to shake him awake; it was dark, so she couldn't see it yet. It took her a minute to realize that her right hand, which had been trying to shake him by the left shoulder, was wet. She took it back and saw it was covered in red.

Fear choking her, she grabbed a flashlight and shone in on the spot her hand had been. There, in Jane's back, at about the same point where his heart was, was a bullet hole. His back was bloody, especially his left shoulder, but not nearly as bloody as it should have been.

"_Jane_!"

"Oh my god!"

"Call it in!"

Cho ran to take Rigsby's direction. Lisbon, frantic, tried to roll Jane over. Rigsby and Van Pelt helped her. They checked his vitals.

"He's not breathing," Van Pelt reported.

"No pulse," Rigsby said, scared.

_No. Oh god, no! _No_!_

Delirious now, Lisbon started to give him CPR. "Damn it, Jane, don't you _dare_ die on me!" she shouted.

~o~

Rich watched from his vantage point atop a nearby tall building. He far from an expert marksman, but it looked like his aim had been true nonetheless.

He saw Lisbon's reaction and felt a tiny twinge of guilt. This would devastate her, he knew that. But it had to be done.

He took out his phone. Time for phase two.

~o~

Charlotte was just about to pack up and go home when her phone rang. She answered it. "Hello?"

"Patrick Jane's been shot," said a man's voice. He gave an address, then added, "It looks like he's already dead; you may want to hurry if you want to get this on the news."

"Sir, I'm sorry, how do you know this?" Charlotte asked, taken aback.

A sinister chuckle came over the line. "Because I'm the one who shot him," he answered. "Oh, tell your sister something for me, won't you? Tell her I'm sorry for her pain, I truly am, but the bastard had it coming and it's for the best anyway."

"Who _are_ you?" Charlotte exclaimed.

Rich chuckled again. "Among Red John's friends, I'm known as his Little Rich Boy," he told Charlotte; "my real name is Walter Mashbourne."


	6. Red Light, Green Light

Paramedics and Charlotte's team of reporters arrived on the scene at essentially the same time. Lisbon hardly noticed the arrival of either - she just kept breathing for Jane and pumping his heart for him, her surroundings a blur. Everything felt almost like a dream, a horrible nightmare she might wake from at any moment.

Jane couldn't die. Not now. Not now that Red John was dead and gone. Jane still had a life to live, a life he had only just gotten back! He couldn't die _now_! He _couldn't_!

She moved aside only for the paramedics with their defibrillator. She kept her hands pressed together in front of her face, praying, unable to help but flash back to when Bosco had been shot - they'd been able to revive him, though he'd lost too much blood to recover…but at least they'd gotten his heart started again. Even if someone's shot, sometimes it works…

She clung to that memory as Jane convulsed under the shock. They checked. No pulse.

_Oh god, please…_

They gave him some more breath, then tried again. _Zap!_

Nothing.

_No…_

"Charging."

"Clear."

_Zap!_

The paramedic felt for a pulse…then shook his head. He turned to Lisbon. "I'm sorry," he said; "he's g-"

"_NOOOOOOOOOOO!_"

Lisbon's cry was so strong, so filled with anguish, it almost seemed like it couldn't be human - no one could be in so much pain as to cry out like that and survive it to do so, surely! Guilt twisted in Walter's heart as he watched and listened from afar, the knowledge that he was the one who had done this to her weighing down on him heavily; she was taking this far harder than even he had expected.

"I'm sorry," he whispered out loud, for all the good it would do. "I had to…"

The pain Lisbon felt was impossible, made her three weeks with Red John seem like a few scrapes and bruises - nothing could compare to the pain she felt now, nothing at all.

It couldn't be. Patrick Jane _could_ _not_ _die_.

She shoved the man aside and resumed giving Jane CPR - there was nothing else she could think of doing.

"You have to keep trying!" she yelled at him.

"I'm sorry!" the man repeated. "He's gone! He's dead!"

"He _can't_ be dead!" Lisbon snarled. "He _can_ _not_ be dead!"

"He _is_." He tried to pull Lisbon off of Jane, but she shook him off.

Then, another paramedic spoke up.

"Hey, it this who I think it is?"

Lisbon glanced up at him while pumping Jane's heart. "This is Patrick Jane, if that's what you're asking," she told him.

The younger medic's eyes widened, and he rushed over to help Lisbon, giving Jane air while she pumped his heart.

"We _do_ have to keep trying," the younger medic told the other.

"He's _dead_," the doom-speaker insisted.

"Do you know who this is?!" the younger cried.

"I don't care if he's Jesus effing Christ-"

"This is _Patrick_ _Jane_!"

The older medic blinked, surprised.

"Well, I'm sorry," he said at last, "but he's _dead_. It's tragic, yes, I won't deny that, but there's no changing it."

"Get him in the ambulance, and keep trying," the younger medic insisted. "What could the harm possibly be? If he's dead, we can't make it worse."

The more realistic medic sighed, but he relented and joined in the help.

When they loaded Jane's body, Lisbon insisted on going, refused to leave his side. She couldn't let him go. She _couldn't_.

They hooked Jane up to monitors; maybe his pulse was just incredibly weak? But no, he was flatlining. Still they kept trying. Lisbon stayed out of their way now, though she couldn't let go of Jane's hand.

"You can't die," she whispered. "You can't. Not after you've come so far…"

Several minutes passed. Lisbon was painfully aware of every second, every moment Jane still wasn't breathing in spite of the shocks, the pumps…

"What the hell?"

The query broke through the haze in Lisbon's mind, and she looked up. One of the medics was tapping the monitor that showed that Jane's heart wasn't beating, as though he thought it was malfunctioning.

"Hey," he said to one of his fellows, "you seeing this?"

The second one looked, too, and he squinted. "Yeah," he said. "That's weird. Must be a misreading…maybe from all the times we've zapped him."

Lisbon couldn't see what they were looking at, but if there was anything _to_ see, then maybe, just maybe…

And then the constant tone that signaled the flatline was broken.

"No way," one of the medics watching breathed.

_Beep. Beep. Beep…_

Jane's heart was beating.

By some miracle, he was alive.

Lisbon couldn't hold back her tears anymore; it was all she could do not to collapse and get in the way of the paramedics who were swarming around Jane with new energy. _Alive_. He was _alive_. She _knew_ he couldn't die, not now, not like this…He was going to be okay…

"Whoa!"

The exclamation sounded like it was signaling something negative. _Oh god, what now?_ Lisbon thought, looking up, trying to see through the tears that blurred her vision. _What else could possibly go wrong? Not something to kill him again, please not something to kill him again…_

The medics were tearing off Jane's jacket, vest, and shirt, and turning him on his side. Blood was everywhere.

Of course. His heart was beating now, so blood was flowing, and that meant…

The sound of Jane's heartbeat slowed, and everyone caught their breath for a second, wondering if it would stop again. But it stabilized, going at an incredibly slow pace but staying steady nonetheless.

The medics started trying to stop the bleeding.

"The bullet's still in there," Lisbon heard one of them say. "Looks like he caught it in the shoulderblade…are those bone fragments?"

"We can't fix this ourselves; he needs surgery," another said.

"We have to keep him alive until we get to the hospital. Ma'am."

Lisbon didn't realize she was being addressed.

"Ma'am? Ma'am!"

"Oh!" She jumped, still clinging to Jane's hand, and acknowledged the one who had spoken. "Yes?"

"What's his blood type?"

Blood type? "Uh…I…I don't know," Lisbon stammered; her brain wasn't working right, she couldn't think…

"Doesn't matter, we've got some o-negative," someone said.

"It had better be enough to last us all the way back."

And suddenly, something occurred to Lisbon, bursting through the mess in her head.

"No one can know he's alive," she said, addressing the medics.

"What?"

"Someone just tried to kill him, and if I had to guess who, I'd say it was one of Red John's friends," Lisbon told them. "If someone in the hospital happens to be another one of Red John's friends and hears that he's alive, they'll come and finish him off. And no one outside the hospital can know he's alive, either," she added quickly, her brain abruptly tying things together now. "We need as few people as possible to know he's alive - only those acting directly to save his life."

"Yes, ma'am," one of the medics said, and he got on the phone, called for the hospital, and began making arrangements per Lisbon's advice.

Relieved that the medics hadn't questioned her, Lisbon clung to Jane's hand, all the tighter now. Though his heart was beating again, and his lungs were working (as well as they could through his injuries), he hadn't stirred otherwise. She couldn't look away from those closed eyes…Eyes she knew so well, that could twinkle with mischief or glow with kindness or burn with wrath…

He'd been dead for several minutes, and she knew the potential for brain damage was very high…but she had to believe he was still in there. There was only one Patrick Jane; a world without him would be…would be…

…_unbearable,_ she admitted to herself.

~o~

Charlotte was trying to get what news she could out of Rigsby, Cho, and Van Pelt now that Jane, Lisbon, the medics, and the ambulance were gone.

"What happened here?" she asked them on camera.

"We don't know," Cho replied. "We got a call saying there was a body here and that we should look into it; we came, and Jane was shot before we took five steps."

"Did any of you see anything, hear anything…?" Charlotte prompted.

"No," Rigsby replied, holding tightly onto Van Pelt, as much for his own comfort as hers.

"Actually," Van Pelt said abruptly, turning in his arms, "I, uh…I thought I heard a noise…I guess like the sonicboom from a bullet."

"Probably used a silencer," Rigsby said.

The others nodded.

There was a pause for a moment. Then Van Pelt asked Charlotte, "Why aren't you asking us who might have done this?"

"Yeah," Rigsby said - now that she mentioned it, that did seem odd. "And how did you get here so soon, anyway?"

Charlotte took a breath. "A man who claimed to be the one who shot Patrick Jane called me," she told them, not caring about the cameras anymore.

"Did they give a name?"

Charlotte nodded. "Does the name 'Walter Mashbourne' mean anything to you?" she asked them.

All three cops blinked.

"Yeah, we've met him a couple of times while working cases," Rigsby said; "he had a thing for Lisbon."

"A thing?" Charlotte repeated. Well, that certainly explained why he had specifically told her to apologize to her sister for him…

"Why would he do this?" Van Pelt asked.

"He…also said that, among Red John's friends, he's known as Red John's 'Little Rich Boy'," Charlotte told them.

"He's one of Red John's friends?!" Van Pelt exclaimed.

Charlotte shrugged. "That's what he told me."

"Oh my god…" The implications of this were mind-blowing…and not just for the people present on the scene.

Far away, Dove watched the report, fuming. The fact that Rich had taken responsibility for it and given both his nickname _and_ his real name meant that he wanted to go to jail, probably because he knew what would happen if she got to him first. He had promised her on Red John's grave that he wouldn't do the very thing he had just done, and that was not an offense that could go unpunished.

_Jail won't keep you safe,_ she thought wrathfully. _Jane had better not be dead, or you will have ruined everything, and not even RJ would forgive you. An attempt on Jane's life was _never_ the answer, and if you'd thought about it for two seconds, you would have realized that. You let your heart rule your head, and you've disgraced us all. Whether Jane lives or not, I _will_ make you regret this._

~o~

When Cho's phone rang and he saw that it was Lisbon calling, he picked up right away.

"Yeah?"

"Get Rigsby and Van Pelt and come to the hospital now," Lisbon told him; "don't ask, I'm not saying another word until you get here - just grab them and go."

"Yes, boss." He hung up and turned to his comrades. "Rigsby, Van Pelt, boss wants us to go now."

"Did she say-?"

"She said she'd tell us when we get to the hospital," Cho said, already headed for their car. Rigsby and Van Pelt followed - after all, it wasn't like they had anything else they could do.

~o~

Lisbon was outside the hospital; Jane had been taken in just a little while ago. After she got the message to Cho, she hesitated, then called the person she had to talk to - there was no one else in the world she _could_ talk to, and…

"Hello?"

"Charlie, it's Terry," Lisbon said. "Can you talk without being heard?"

"Uh, no, but…hang on." Sounds came over the line as Charlotte moved away from the scene; Lisbon heard her give directions of privacy.

"Okay, now I can talk," she said at last. "Is he-?"

"He's alive," Lisbon said, "or he was the last time I saw him…but the wound's bad, sis, and…he was dead for so long…"

"But he's alive as far as you know," Charlotte said; "hold onto that."

"Yeah…" Lisbon hesitated, then asked, "How did you get to the scene so quickly?"

"The…uh…person who shot him called me," Charlotte told her sister hesitantly.

"Did they say who they were?" Lisbon asked. "Was it Dove?"

"No, it was a man…Red John's 'Little Rich Boy'?"

"Rich?" Lisbon repeated, surprised. "I've talked to him a couple of times at Red John's parties, he didn't seem like the type…"

"Well, uh, he also told me his real name," Charlotte said. "And he told me to tell you that he's truly sorry for the pain he's caused you, but, and I quote, 'the bastard had it coming and it's for the best anyway.'"

Lisbon's gut twisted. "What's his real name?" she heard herself ask, though she suddenly got the feeling that she didn't want to know.

"The name he gave me was…uh…" Lisbon could almost see Charlotte brace herself. "…Walter Mashbourne."

It was all Lisbon could do to not drop the phone. "_Walter_?" she repeated, completely taken aback. "_He's_ Red John's Little Rich Boy? _Him_?"

"Yeah, your team told me he had a thing for you, you guys crossed paths during some cases, something…?"

"Yeah," Lisbon said. "He, uh, liked me, right away, and never really gave up…Oh god." Her gorge started to rise as she remembered.

"What?"

"Look, sis, I…I didn't want a relationship with him - I didn't even want to see him again - so I…figured our pact didn't apply," Lisbon confessed. "So I…uh…"

"You did _not_."

"I was…kind of messed up after this case, a bullet went through my shirt collar and a bunch of other crazy stuff happened…I don't know!" she cried. "I…"

"You…?"

"I slept with one of Red John's friends," Lisbon finished faintly. "Yeah. Excuse me while I throw up." And she very nearly did.

Charlotte was silent for a minute, then said, "You couldn't have known."

But that was wrong. As with Kristina, it was so obvious now that she looked back on everything. Walter had known right away that Jane was an ex-psychic…and at the first party Lisbon went to, Siren had said she was surprised Rich had come - that made sense now, because there was the risk she might recognize him…How had she not recognized him, if only by his voice? How had she talked and drank with him repeatedly and not realized…? And the way Brett had smiled when she mentioned how Rich had almost told her his story - the fact that she'd slept with him as Walter Mashbourne was probably commonly known to Red John's friends…they'd probably all had a laugh about it, in fact, as well they should have…She wondered what Red John himself had thought of it, before and after he had taken her…

"I could have, if I'd had a mind to," she said at last. "I could have recognized him at Red John's parties…"

"But you had no reason to think of it," Charlotte said. "It's okay, sis."

Lisbon nodded. "Thank you for forgiving me for breaking our pact," she said.

"No, you're right, if you didn't even _want_ to be with him for real, it's okay," Charlotte reassured her. "I must say, I'm kind of surprised that _you'd_ do something like that, but…"

"Yeah, not one of my proudest moments," Lisbon said, half-laughing at herself, almost hysterical.

"Yeah…so…he failed. To kill Jane."

Lisbon nodded. "Yeah." She hesitated again…She didn't really want to say it, but…she _had_ to say it, she thought she might burst if she didn't -

"I think I love him."

"Who?"

"Jane," Lisbon said. "I…I don't know, I just…when I thought he was dead, I…I mean, when he came back, I just…I couldn't…He can't die, sis," she finally managed. "I wouldn't be able to live in a world without him."

"Uh, wow…" Charlotte was surprised by this sudden confession, but she quickly recovered, and was considerate enough not to gloat or act smug or say 'I told you so'. "He's alive," she said instead. "He'll make it."

"Yeah." There was a pause, then, "He kissed me. Like, for real, not to help me out of what Red John did to me…"

"Did you kiss him back?"

"Yeah," Lisbon admitted, blushing now. "And then, the next thing I knew, he was running away like the room was on fire. He looked scared…Called in sick the next day, said he thought he was going clinically insane." She shook her head. "What am I supposed to make of that, sis? I've been trying to figure it out and I just…"

"He had a family once," Charlotte reminded her; "he's probably afraid to move on."

"Yeah…" And there was nothing else to say. "Listen, I'm going to go inside now and wait for whatever news comes."

"I'll handle things here," Charlotte said. "No one can know he came back, right?"

"Yeah, no, as far as you or anyone else knows, he's dead," Lisbon said, relieved that her sister understood the situation.

"Got it."

"Thanks, sis."

"Yeah…Hey, I love you."

Lisbon smiled. "Love you too," she said.

They hung up.

Cho still hadn't arrived with Rigsby and Van Pelt, but Lisbon couldn't wait any longer; she went inside, as far as she could get past the waiting room, then started pacing, anxiously awaiting news. Not knowing how he was was absolute torture…_But he's alive,_ she reminded herself. _As far as you know, he's alive…_

~o~

"Boss!"

Van Pelt's voice was the first to jerk Lisbon out of her stupor. She turned to see her team running up to her.

"What's going on?" Rigsby asked.

"His heart started again in the ambulance, but the bullet wound's really bad," she told them. "He's in surgery now…They're trying to keep as many people out of the loop as possible in case another one of Red John's friends might hear about it, but I don't know what that means as far as what they're doing to help him…"

"But he's alive?!" Rigsby exclaimed.

Lisbon had to force herself to nod. "As far as I know, yes, he's alive," she answered.

"Oh, thank god," Van Pelt gasped.

Cho remained grim. "Boss, Charlotte told us-"

"That Walter Mashbourne is the shooter, and Red John's Little Rich Boy," Lisbon finished. "Yeah, I know - I called her after I called you, and she told me."

"So…"

"It's probably true," Lisbon told them, "I won't lie. Based on what I know of the man called 'Rich' at Red John's parties and what I know of Walter, it's probably true." She told them about the message he'd asked Charlotte to give her.

"For the best?" Van Pelt repeated. "What could that mean?"

Lisbon shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine," she said. In truth, though, she had a hunch: If Dove was supposed to lead Red John's friends 'as he would', she probably had access to his surveillance technology, which meant that that kiss may well be common knowledge among them all; between jealousy and the contempt Lisbon now knew he had for Jane, Walter probably thought that it was in Lisbon's best interest for him to kill Jane before things could go anywhere.

_If Jane dies, I will destroy you,_ Lisbon thought. _Jail won't protect you, and neither will Dove - I'll make you pay for this._

There was nothing else left to do but wait. Lisbon resumed pacing, Cho and Rigsby stood still, and Van Pelt had taken a few steps back - she was praying, silently but with all her heart; after all, praying had worked when Jane had needed to save Lisbon from Red John two lifetimes ago…

o~X~o

* * *

**Special guest star time! This doesn't really qualify this story as a crossover, but a few words about the BAU…**

* * *

Penelope Garcia never forgot Patrick Jane, and she secretly kept tabs on the California news, just to see how he was doing - he was _almost_ a member of the BAU, and the team was her family; he was close enough to qualify.

So she found out right away when the report came in that Patrick Jane had been shot and was probably dead.

The BAU had just closed another case, and it was the absolute worst time to bring news like this to the others, but she had to - she couldn't face this alone. So she got up and left her computers to meet the others in the office.

"Garcia?" Morgan asked, surprised. "To what do we owe this pleasure?"

She shook her head. "No pleasure," she said. She met the eyes of her teammates tearfully and said, "Patrick Jane is dead."

There was a very long, stunned silence.

"…What?" Rossi finally asked.

Garcia shook her head. "He was shot earlier tonight, paramedics couldn't revive him," she said; "that's all I know, but…" She hesitated, then burst out, "If he had come and joined us he would have been safe!"

Any high spirits the team had had from closing another case came crashing down. Everyone thought of the mentalist they had respected as one of their own, and mourned his loss.

Or no, not everyone. It took the others a minute to notice it, but there was a strange expression on Reid's face…something like surprise, awe, confusion, doubt, and…more confusion.

"Reid?" JJ asked.

"He…might not be dead," Reid said slowly.

At once, everyone turned to him.

"Reid, do you know something?" Hotch asked.

Reid hesitated, then said, "He called me a couple of days ago, asking if there was a way to spontaneously fake death so effectively that even heart monitors would be fooled," he told the others. "Such a thing has never been done, but…I told him that since, in theory, the brain controls the body and the mind controls the brain, it might be remotely possible to shut down his vital organs without losing consciousness, then restart them later…Self-induced body death." He shrugged. "That was the only thing that fit his requirements - he said it couldn't be a poison or a staged thing, and, well…I guess it's remotely possible…"

"So he might be faking?" Garcia asked.

Reid shrugged again. "If there's anyone who can pull it off, it's him," he said; "I don't think the shooting was staged, in any case…I think he was preparing in case something like this happened."

"Red John had a lot of friends," Hotch remembered out loud, nodding.

"I will keep a very close eye on the news," Garcia said, and she hurried back to her computers.

* * *

**For the record: Yes, I know this is all complete and utter BS for convenience's sake - the most exasperating of all types of plot devices. I swear, it's not going to be so simple as "oh, he's fine, everything's okay" - it won't be - and I hope you'll pardon my taking an "author's out"…This was always part of my story, years ago, and honestly, it was a little too important to change or remove; you'll see why later.**

**Also, sorry for the delay, I know I left you all with the worst cliffhanger ever; I myself have been in and out of the hospital lately, so that's made things difficult. I even typed some of this one-handed with a needle in my arm in the middle of the night. You're welcome.**


	7. A Little Red Lie

The team waited. And waited. They had no way of knowing anything, no one to ask, nowhere to go.

After a few minutes had passed in tense silence, Rigsby said, "Hey, shouldn't we call Bertram? He'll want to know what's going on."

"No!"

Lisbon, Rigsby, and Cho turned to Van Pelt, surprised by her exclamation. Her eyes were wide.

"No," she repeated, more calmly this time, "we shouldn't tell him Jane's alive."

"Why not?" Rigsby asked.

"He…just…" Van Pelt bit her lip, hesitant to tell the others what she had heard, what she suspected. "He was…on that list," she said at last. "You know, the one Craig was on, that Red John said there was more than one person on it who was a friend of his? I just…think we shouldn't take any chances."

"I agree with Van Pelt," Lisbon declared. "No risks. This has come close enough as it is."

Cho and Rigsby conceded. Rigsby gave Van Pelt an odd look, but didn't question her further.

Why wasn't she telling them? She wasn't sure. Maybe she already suspected that someday, the knowledge would be of even greater use…

Suddenly, there was the sound of footsteps walking down the hall, from the direction of the interior of the hospital. Everyone turned to see a doctor approaching them.

"Doctor!" Lisbon had no idea if this man had anything to do with Jane, but she was so impatient for news that she met him halfway. "What news?"

He hesitated. "And you are?" he asked.

"Agent Lisbon, this is Agents Cho, Rigsby, Van Pelt." She introduced the others for good measure as they ran up to join her. "We're the Red Team."

"Ah," he said. "Yes, I have news."

"Is Jane okay?" Lisbon asked anxiously.

The doctor hesitated.

"…We're not sure," he said at last.

"Wh…What do you mean?" Lisbon asked, confused.

The doctor sighed. "The bullet didn't penetrate his heart," he told them; "luckily, most of its momentum was absorbed by his shoulderblade, which shattered into fragments. Did one of you give him CPR?"

"Uh, yes, I did," Lisbon said, worried now.

The doctor nodded. "His heart and lungs got some cuts from the bone fragments being pounded into them," he told her.

She put her hands over her mouth. Was this doctor going to tell her that she had killed Jane instead of saving him?

"We repaired the damage as best we could, and…there shouldn't be any lasting complications from that," the doctor went on; "as far as his injury goes, his body should heal with significant scarring but nothing more severe."

Lisbon let out her breath, only just realizing as she did so that she had been holding it.

"So what's the problem?" asked Van Pelt.

"Well, the problem is…he hasn't woken up," the doctor said.

"Take him off the anesthesia, maybe?" Rigsby suggested.

The doctor shook his head. "We never administered any. We had an anesthesiologist on standby in case he started to regain consciousness, but…he didn't." He hesitated, then added, "I understand he was officially dead for several minutes…it's likely that he suffered from severe brain damage. He may never wake up, and if he does, he probably won't be the same."

"No," Lisbon breathed. Changed was no better than dead, at least when it came to Patrick Jane.

"I'm aware of his significant mental abilities," the doctor said sadly, nodding; "I must confess that, in my professional opinion, it's extremely unlikely that he will retain them. Perhaps it's for the best that he has so much to lose - maybe he'll wake up normal."

But Lisbon shook her head. "Patrick Jane cannot be normal," she told the doctor; "he wouldn't be…well, he wouldn't be _Patrick_ _Jane_!"

"I understand," the doctor sighed, nodding again. "Well, that's all I have to tell you. He's being monitored carefully-"

"Is he safe?" Lisbon asked abruptly, only just remembering the other side of the picture.

The doctor nodded. "We have our best nurse and our…ah…most enthusiastic nurse looking after him," he told her.

She smiled in spite of herself. "Most enthusiastic?" she repeated. "You mean his biggest fan?"

The doctor nodded. "The one least likely to have any ties to Red John," he said. "I understand that that's the current theory?"

"It's been confirmed," Lisbon told him; "one of Red John's friends shot him, we know that for a fact."

"Well, I'm glad you thought to warn us to take precautions, Miss Lisbon," the doctor said. "It would be a shame if we saved his life only for him to die."

_"…a shame if he saved your life only for you to be unable to resume it…"_

Brett Stiles's words from one of Red John's parties echoed in Lisbon's mind. _Everyone thought it was impossible for _me_ to recover from a traumatizing ordeal, but _I_ made it,_ she remembered. _If anyone can do the same now, it's Patrick Jane._

It was almost ironic how painfully accurate that thought was…

~o~

"Such a shame," sighed the nurse. "He was such a great man."

"He _is_ a great man," her companion said.

"Not anymore," the first told her more naive associate. "He'll be normal at best, if he ever wakes up at all."

But the other shook her head. "He'll wake up, and he'll be fine," she said; "he's _Patrick_ _Jane_!"

"He's only human, Connie," the first nurse said, a bit annoyed, "and he was dead for several minutes! There's no way his brain escaped damage."

"His brain is special!" Connie insisted.

"He's done amazing things, but he's just a man," the more realistic nurse sighed. "As I said, it's a shame, but all we can do is hope he wakes up at all."

The two of them were supposed to monitor Jane's vitals and make sure nothing else happened to him. Neither of them had any affiliation with Red John, so Connie, the fangirl nurse, was sort of unneeded, but precautions had to be taken all the same, just in case.

Connie shook her head again. "Patrick Jane can conquer death," she said, and she really sounded as though she believed it, much to her companion's exasperation. "He can do _anything_."

"He was _dead_," the more useful nurse repeated. "His brain was almost certainly damaged."

"_Almost_ certainly." Connie leapt at this phrasing. "If anyone can overcome the odds, it's Patrick Jane."

"You're both wrong."

Connie and the other nurse both jumped; they had been looking at each other while they were arguing, so they hadn't noticed Jane open his eyes.

"Sorry," he said, "didn't mean to scare you. But, uh, you're both wrong. And I'm fine, by the way." He turned his eyes on the fangirl. "Connie, would you please go and get Teresa Lisbon? I'm sure she's waiting outside very anxiously." He looked at the other nurse. "You can do your, ah, routine stuff while she's gone," he told her.

The two women blinked, then both abruptly began to do exactly as he said. Connie practically bolted out of the room, and the other nurse began checking his eyes, his reflexes, everything vital and non-vital. Jane welcomed the few minutes of pointless medical stuff, because what was coming after would be a lot more painful than getting shot in the back…

~o~

"Doctor! Doctor!"

The doctor who had been speaking to Lisbon and her team turned at the eager calls.

"Connie," he said to the young woman who ran up to him, so excited she was practically bouncing on the balls of her feet. "You're supposed to be monitoring-"

"He's awake!" she burst out, virtually jumping for joy. "He's awake! And he says he's okay!"

"I doubt that…" the doctor said hesitantly.

"How did he seem?" Lisbon asked.

Connie blinked. "Uh…very abrupt, very forward," she said. Then, "Are you Teresa Lisbon? He says he wants to see you."

"Uh, yes, I am…" She looked at the doctor.

"We'll all go," Van Pelt spoke up.

"We certainly will," the doctor said, almost suspiciously.

All six of them hurried down the hall, each for their own reasons. Connie led the way, Lisbon jogging right behind her. Could it really be that Jane was okay…?

~o~

"I'm _fine_," Jane told the nurse for the umpteenth time. "You're not going to find anything wrong with me, so stop trying." For she had been constantly retaking evaluations of every vital sign, convinced she was mistaken in finding that he was perfectly okay.

The sound of quickly approaching footsteps precluded the arrival of Connie, the doctor, and Lisbon and the team. Immediately, Jane's mood sobered. This wasn't going to be pretty…

And then everyone was there. It was all he could do to meet their eyes, especially Lisbon's. It almost broke him to see the fearful hope in her expression.

"Hey," he said to everyone. "I, uh, I'm sorry I scared you."

The doctor immediately walked over and took the other nurse's place.

"I'm trying my best, but I keep getting normal readings everywhere," she told him.

"That's because I'm _fine_," Jane repeated to her.

"You were dead for several minutes," the nurse retorted.

Jane took a breath to brace himself, then said, "No I wasn't."

"Jane."

He looked at Lisbon.

"You weren't breathing, your heart wasn't beating-"

"Yes, I know," Jane said, "and I know I scared you, and I'm sorry. I didn't…I didn't realize you would be so scared." He met everyone's blank gazes, then confessed, "I was faking."

"Your vitals-"

"Were dead, yes, I know," Jane said, "but I was conscious, and I shut myself down intentionally." He looked at his team again. "I got the idea from Spencer."

"Who?" Van Pelt asked.

"Doctor Spencer Reid, from the BAU, remember him?" Jane replied. "Well, okay, I guess it was technically my idea, but he did confirm that it was possible-"

"Wait wait wait," Lisbon said.

Jane shut his mouth.

She looked at him. He hated watching the realization dawn in her eyes, but he forced himself to not look away.

"You…died on purpose?" she asked. "You were…_prepared_ to die on purpose?"

"I wasn't dead," he told her; "my brain was still functioning normally." He sighed. "Here, I'll prove it." He might as well, after all.

He closed his eyes. It was easier this time, now that he'd done it once - he knew what he needed to make happen. His heart slowed, softened, and stopped. He flatlined for half a minute, then made his heart beat again. It started faintly, then got stronger, and the he opened his eyes and was fully normal again.

Everyone stared at him, some with awe, some with shock…and one with anger that was growing by the second.

"You knew this would happen," Lisbon said slowly.

"I didn't _know_," Jane told her; "I just wanted to be prepared in case it did."

"You told me there was nothing to worry about," she remembered out loud. "I said I'd hold you to that…"

"I didn't want you to worry," Jane told her.

"Worry?" Lisbon repeated, and he saw the rage rising past the shock, just as he had known it would. "Jane, I thought you were _dead_!"

He nodded. "I know," he said morosely.

She shook her head. Then, suddenly, she drew her gun.

"You son of a bitch!" she snarled, aiming between his eyes.

The doctor and nurses didn't have time to react before the rest of the team each had their gun aimed at one of them. They didn't want to fire, but whatever was going on, they realized it was between Lisbon and Jane, and that any interference would only make things worse.

Jane didn't flinch.

"Are you going to shoot me, Teresa?" he asked softly.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't," she snapped. "Do you have any idea how scared I was?"

"Yes," Jane said. "I heard you scream - I was conscious, I _heard_ you. I…I'm sorry, I…" He sighed. "I didn't know you would be that scared," he admitted.

"Does it really matter _how_ scared I was?" she exclaimed. "I _told_ you, I worry about you, I _care_ about you, and you let this happen without telling me?!"

"I didn't know for sure that it _would_ happen," Jane told her. "I didn't want you looking over your shoulder every five seconds waiting for me to drop when it might have never happened at all - and what I did was _not_ easy, there was no guarantee I could pull it off! I might not have been able to shut down, I might not have been able to bring myself back, I may well have gotten shot in the head for all I knew! I didn't want you to worry."

He hated seeing how hurt she was; he had made a judgement call, and now he had to deal with the consequences - he had well known this might happen, too.

"You have no idea how much I _worried_," she said coldly. "You have no _idea_ what you put me through tonight! I thought you were _dead_! Do you have _any_ idea how much that hurt? I would rather spend three weeks with Red John again than go through what I did tonight!"

This was something Jane had _not_ expected, and suddenly, he realized he had made a mistake.

"I didn't know you'd take it that hard," he said softly. "I'm sorry."

She shook her head. "No," she said, fighting back angry tears. "No, you're not sorry." For a minute, Jane thought she was actually going to shoot him, and he wasn't so sure he didn't want her to. But she holstered her gun, and her team followed suit. Still she glared at him, her eyes skewering him more brutally than any bullet could.

Then she closed her eyes, and her face shut off.

"I'm done," she said in a scary tone that even Jane couldn't read.

"Boss?" Van Pelt asked.

Lisbon shook her head. "I'm done," she repeated, looking at Jane again, a cold emptiness in her eyes that hurt him more than any level of anger could. "I am _done_ caring about you. I have been through hell more times than I can count because I've cared about you - I'm done! No more. You're on your own." And she turned and left.

The team stared after her for a minute, surprised, then decided to follow her. They didn't know how they felt about Jane faking and making them all worry; the level of offense varied among them. Cho hesitated before going out the door and looked at Jane.

"Not cool, man," he said.

And then he left, and it was just the doctor and the two nurses.

"You don't need to be here," Jane told them stonily, "any of you. Please leave me alone."

Connie gave him a sympathetic look, but other than that, he received no response other than obedience.

Only when he was completely alone did he allow himself to cry.

He hadn't meant to hurt her like this…He had thought he was _protecting_ her, but…

_"I would rather spend three weeks with Red John again than go through what I did tonight!"_

That, plus the scream he had heard while conscious in death, told him just how badly he had messed up. He had hurt her far worse than even Red John ever could have.

He had only just gotten used to not hating himself. Now, he hated himself more than ever.

* * *

**I know, I know, but there's a direction this BS will take things. I, uh, wrote this, too, but I'm concerned it might be too much…Is this too much? :\**

* * *

_Jane felt the bullet shatter his shoulderblade. His heart was still beating, and it didn't seem damaged, but…well, it had happened, and it was time to see if he could outsmart Red John's friends once and for all - one last victory, absolute and total, and they'd be forced to concede defeat, even the ones who didn't follow Red John's code of honor, surely._

_He allowed himself to fall, slowly, to give the others time to register what was going on - even if he stopped the blood flow and didn't die from it, he needed an ambulance or he'd die no matter what. But Lisbon…_

_He heard her calling him. He forced himself to look up at her, reach out and take her hand, fighting the pain and the feeling of glass shards in his lungs to tell her…_

_"L…Lis…bon…I…I'm…s…s…sor…ry…"_

_And then he allowed himself to collapse. It was now or never._

_He forced his heartbeat to slow, his blood pressure to lessen, his lungs to come to rest. The trick was to shut down the heart without shutting down his brain as well - the lungs would follow, and his other organs would follow that._

_But he couldn't quite make himself shut down completely. He tried to tell his heart to stop beating, but it fought him, naturally._

_Then he felt himself being turned over, jostling him, sticking bone fragments into his chest cavity and the organs there. That was what it took; he shut down._

_He could still hear, but as though he was underwater…Sounds echoed strangely in his head, and it took him a second to realize that this was because blood was no longer pumping through his ears - it was a silence that simply wasn't supposed to be._

_He could feel every organ in his body shutting down one by one, and was also curiously able to sense a means of starting them up again, as though he was in conscious control of every neuron in his body._

_He had done it. It was improbable to the utmost, but he had done it._

_Of course, the brain can't go without oxygen for long, and he hadn't considered that. Without respiration, his consciousness became increasingly muddled._

_Then an external force was acting on his organs, filling his lungs with air and pounding on his heart to make it beat. Someone was giving him CPR - probably Lisbon. He allowed his heart to beat with each thrust to his chest, his lungs to accept the air they were given and let it out again under pressure. His mind cleared. He was almost fully conscious - sounds were clearer, more distinct, and he could feel the forces acting on his body. In fact, it was all he could do to keep his heart from taking over and beating on its own again. But he had to restrain it…_

_And then there was a change. There was a pause in the CPR, then a new pressure on his chest. As though far in the distance, he heard the voices:_

_"Charging."_

_"Clear."_

_He barely managed to brace himself for the shock that went through his body. It was extremely painful, rather like having his chest stomped on, and hard. He didn't fight the electric current that forced his heart to beat once, but he stopped it after that._

_The second shock was about to come; he was more ready, but this one was more powerful, and his heart almost leapt out of control. He forced it down._

_And then the third time…So painful, he almost lost his focus, but he clung to it, knowing that, ironically, his life depended on it._

_And then stillness._

_Then a sound ripped through him - a cry of such incredible anguish, it took him a minute to realize it was Lisbon…Lisbon, who had just been told he was dead and gone. He managed to pray that he'd made the right choice in not telling her…_

_And then someone was giving him CPR again - again, Lisbon, he could hear her shouting over him, insisting that he couldn't die. He had counted on this, more than he had realized - if she hadn't kept giving him CPR, he would have had to force himself back to life too soon or pass away into the void for real. But she kept him alive. Just like she always did._

I love you…

_Words he couldn't say, not now, but maybe, just maybe, he would be able to someday, if this plan worked…_

_Of course, they had to stop giving him CPR to load him into the ambulance. He tried to hold on, ready to restart his heart as soon as it was safe…but the sounds started growing distant, his thinking became increasingly muddled…The feeling of Lisbon clinging to his hand faded, he lost awareness of his body…_

_he was drifting…_

_down…_

_slowly…_

_why was he fighting it?…_

_just relax…_

_fall…_

_fall…_

Lisbon.

_He was at the bottom of an ocean, weighed down and sinking still, but the word floated just above him, and he kicked out, trying to force his way back up, if only to chase that one word…What was it about that word? What did it mean?! He struggled to remember…_

Teresa Lisbon.

_It was a name. Was it his name? No, no, it wasn't…What was _his_ name?_

_He fought, struggling to swim to the surface, cold and crushed under tons and tons of water…What was his name?…_

Patrick Jane.

_Yes, that was right. More…More, as he fought his way higher and higher, the faintest of light able to reach him now - consciousness, awareness, _life_…_

Life. Live. Alive.

Breath. Heartbeat. Air. Blood. Oxygen. Thought.

LIFE!

_And he broke through to the surface, and his heart was beating again. He regained his awareness of his surroundings, of pain…_

"Whoa!"

_Pain! Something very wrong - bone shards asunder, vessels shredded, blood leaking, pouring out-_

Slow down!_ he told his heart. _Beat, but slower! SLOWER!

_He slowed it as much as he dared, then held it steady. It would still be a very near thing. He couldn't risk doing anything else, couldn't risk stirring - he didn't have the blood or the oxygen to spare._

_He kept careful monitor of himself as he received a transfusion, got carted into the hospital…He felt them taking out bone fragments, sewing up the cuts, and putting his shoulderblade back together all through surgery - the brain isn't meant to handle that sort of pain, but he survived it. Then he was stitched up, bandaged up, carted away…_

_He waited until he was sure it was done. He listened to two women argue over him for a moment; their conversation told him it was time._

_And he opened his eyes._


	8. Beaten Red and Swollen

Lisbon's scars burned, all twenty-three of them, as she strode down the hall…scars so horrible, so numerous, she had to wear long sleeves even in midsummer - which, in California, was especially brutal.

And why did she have them?

Because she'd cared about Patrick Jane.

If she hadn't, Red John wouldn't have taken her, and even if he were to have taken her for some other reason, the only reason she had held on for so long was because she'd known her death would devastate Jane - she made her peace with death less than half an hour after she awoke to find herself Red John's captive, but had clung to life for Jane's sake…and had therefore endured three weeks of indescribable torture.

What else had she lost because of Jane? Well, Sam Bosco, for one - his death was Jane's fault in so many ways. And she had betrayed Sam's trust once because she'd cared about Jane, too - threatened to end both their careers just to get Jane out of jail. She'd been suspended several times because of Jane, willingly, almost killed a few times as well…

_"You've almost died twice now because of him!"_

Red John's words, but they were wrong…No, it had been more than those two times. She'd been kidnapped by a psycho, she'd been shot several times, she had been almost blown up several times in more than one way…

Was there any suffering she had endured over the past ten years that _hadn't_ been Jane's fault, even indirectly?

She couldn't think of any.

Sure, he'd saved her several times, but each of those times, he was saving her from situations she never would have been in to begin with had it not been for him. The scars she bore, that now burned as though they had just been ripped open again, reminded her, every moment, how much she had endured and how much she had sacrificed because she'd cared about Patrick Jane.

Half an hour ago, she had thought she might be in love with him - almost agreed with Red John and Charlotte and probably everyone else! Now, she remembered why it would be stupid of her to have feelings like that for him: because he was a cold, arrogant bastard who didn't care about anything or anyone but himself.

She didn't love him now.

She _hated_ him.*

Of course, Walter Mashbourne would have to pay, too - he had made a choice to put her through this just as much as Jane had. Funny, really, how the only men she had ever been close to had unwillingly worked together to make this night the worst ordeal of her life, even worse than her time as Red John's captive.

They would _both_ pay.

First, Walter had to be found. He'd revealed himself to Charlotte, so he probably wasn't hiding; finding him and taking him down wouldn't be diffiuclt. And…they probably should keep Jane's survival a secret until it was done - even with her vendetta against Jane, Lisbon couldn't let Walter have his way in the end either.

The others insisted on waiting to arrest Walter until Jane was well enough to leave the hospital and join them. The majority ruled, but Lisbon refused to have any direct involvement in that side of things; when Jane was snuck out of the hospital two days later, it was Van Pelt who picked him up.

He wasn't surprised, didn't even comment on Lisbon's absence. He knew what he'd done to her, and she had every right to be furious with him. It didn't matter that this time, he really had been trying to _protect_ her from the worst situation he could think of - he had messed up royally, and it wasn't fair that anyone but him pay the price for it.

Except maybe Walter.

That Walter Mashbourne was also Red John's Little Rich Boy was very surprising for Jane - he had spent time with Walter himself, even sort of liked the guy, enough to push Lisbon towards him at least…and all along, the man had hated his guts. He'd been very good at pretending, and Jane had to respect him for it.

Finally, all five members of the Red Team were outside Walter Mashbourne's residence, ready to finally take him down. Charlotte was there as well, setting up, but there would be no official report until after Walter was in handcuffs.

Time for some payback.

~o~

Lisbon was pissed, so, as with Red John, she didn't even bother knocking - she took out her rage on the door and smashed it down without any thought or hesitation.

And she got the same response:

"The door wasn't locked, you know."

Walter was sitting inside calmly, clearly waiting for them. Lisbon's eyes narrowed at the sight of him.

"Hey, Saint," he said, only half-casually.

"Don't call me that, _Rich_," she growled.

He nodded and stood, not smiling. She holstered her gun, almost regretting that she had no excuse to use it, then walked inside, her team behind her. Rigsby, Cho, and Van Pelt looked at Walter Mashbourne with new eyes. He met their gazes, almost understandingly. Then he turned back to Lisbon, who was approaching him.

"Look, Teresa, I'm sorry," he said; "I know I hurt you, and I'm sorry. But I _had_ to."

Without further pretense or even the slightest change in expression, she punched him hard in the face. He didn't even try to dodge it, stumbling back from the blow, though he managed not to fall.

"The hell you did, you bastard," she snarled. "Did you do this yourself, or did Dove-?"

"I promised Dove on RJ's grave I wouldn't do _anything_," Walter confessed to her; "she's probably almost as mad at me for this as you are. But listen, Teresa, I _had_ to! The world's better off without that idiot-"

"You mean _I'm_ better off without that idiot," Lisbon snapped. "Right? That _is_ it, isn't it?"

Walter hesitated, then sighed. "You deserve better," he said. "RJ wouldn't have wanted-"

She punched him again, then turned him around and slammed him mercilessly against the wall, face-first.

"You're under arrest, you son of a bitch," she spat, cuffing him.

"Teresa, I'm sorry, I know you're upset," he said, "but hating me isn't going to bring him back. What matters is that he's gone - it's over, he'll never do anything stupid again."

"You sure about that?"

Lisbon rolled her eyes at the voice that spoke up with impeccable timing. She jerked Walter around so he was facing the room and door…and could see Jane standing in the doorway.

His eyes bulged, his jaw dropped.

Jane smiled at him and waved. "Hey, Walter," he said cheerfully.

"You - I - but-!" Walter spluttered.

"You're under arrest," Lisbon said, "for the _attempted_ murder of Patrick Jane…though trust me, you're not the only one here who wishes you hadn't failed."

Jane's smile dropped at that; she may as well have slapped him.

"Come on, you piece of filth," Lisbon growled, dragging him towards the door.

"But - but - but _how_?" he exclaimed, staring at Jane, just barely walking enough to stay on his feet as Lisbon stomped by. "You were _dead_!"

"Uh, no, actually, I wasn't," Jane told him, walking beside him to keep up with Lisbon, who was acting as though neither of them were speaking. "I was faking. Self-induced body death - extremely risky, and it was almost impossible to pull off, but there you go. I had a feeling one of you wouldn't follow Red John's code of honor, and I was ready, though I didn't tell anyone in advance."

Lisbon jerked Walter forward at those words. He was too astonished to even notice.

"But I - but you - but - but -!" he babbled incoherently all the way to the police car Lisbon shoved him into. Someone else was driving, so she shut the door on him and stood back. She glared after the vehicle, even allowed Jane to handle the press. When the car was out of sight, she turned the same glare on Jane as he described his feat to Charlotte and the cameras.

_Well, that's done with, at least,_ she thought.

But she wasn't satisfied - she didn't feel any better at all. The worst part was that, because the Red Team was such a big deal, she couldn't fire Jane, couldn't transfer him to another team, couldn't transfer _herself_ to another team - she would have to deal with being his boss for the rest of their lives.

It wasn't like her to take advantage of her power - most often, if anything, she submitted to others. In this case, however, life had buried her in lemons, so she was going to do her best to make lemonade.

If she had to be Jane's boss, she would use her status as such to make his life hell.

~o~

Walter rode in silent shock. Outsmarted by Patrick Jane, just as RJ had been…How had he not seen this coming? He had failed. He wondered how Dove felt - she knew, surely, that Jane was alive, though she hadn't told him, or anyone else as far as he knew.

"Dove isn't too happy with you," said the driver.

Walter jumped. He recognized that voice.

"Ace?"

"Rich," the man known as Ace among Red John's friends acknowledged. "You're not going to jail; Dove wants to deal with you personally."

Well, hell.

~o~

There was no official record of what happened to Walter Mashbourne - he was put in a police car, and then he, the car, and the driver all vanished. Having been revealed to be one of Red John's friends, it was just as well - the general public would have mercilessly ripped him to shreds, the legal system be damned.

Of course, Dove was furious for much more personal reasons. She decided to make an example of him, assembling all of Red John's friends to watch her punish him, even Kristina. She tied him between two poles, rendering him helpless, and set it all on a stage so everyone could see.

"Walter Mashbourne, Little Rich Boy of Red John, you promised me, on RJ's grave, that you would not act out," she declared.

"I had to do something!" he exclaimed. "You would have let him-!"

Dove slapped him to make him shut up.

"An attempt on Patrick Jane's life was _never_ the answer," she told him furiously, "and now that you've done it anyway, and he's made such a spectacular show of outsmarting you at it, we've _all_ been made fools of! Everyone will think you were acting on our behalf, and they'll think of us all as dishonorable lowlifes for acting out when Red John himself would not have!"

"They think we're lowlifes anyway!" Walter argued.

"At least we had honor!" Dove shouted. "Now, we're nothing but scum! That is what we, all that's left of Red John's legacy, have been turned into now because of _you_!" She hit Walter in the face again, this time with a fist. She was wearing RJ's hunting costume - albeit with the hood and mask down - so the blow had some extra force to it, and Walter noticed.

"How are you…?" he asked, breathless from more than just pain.

Dove smiled. "Not all of RJ's strength came from his own body," she told Rich, and all the others as well. "He never wasted anything."

Walter's eyes widened.

"There is only one positive aspect of what you've done," Dove went on after a minute: "Red John's Dear Little Saint now hates Patrick Jane almost as much as RJ himself did."

Everyone watching gasped; Walter blinked. "She does?" he asked, surprised.

Dove nodded. "Seems Jane didn't tell her he was prepared to fake his own death," she said, speaking to everyone present now. "He's put her through a lot, but the night she thought he died was the final straw. If he does love her now, it will only mean more pain for him."

Some mutterings and whispers ran through the audience.

"Therefore," Dove went on after a minute, turning back to Walter, "you will not be punished with death for your betrayal."

Rich had less than a second to be relieved before Dove took out Red John's precious knife and unfolded it.

"However," she went on, "your insolence has cost us dearly, and your broken vow is abhorrent. You _will_ be punished."

As she approached him, Red John's knife in hand, his eyes bugged. "RJ never hurt his friends!" he exclaimed.

"He ordered death for the friends who betrayed him," Dove pointed out.

Then she smiled slightly, almost evilly, and though Walter had never seen Red John's dark side in person, he recognized the expression and was suddenly very afraid.

"Besides," she hissed, raising the knife to his throat, "I'm not RJ."

It was fortunate that Dove had decided to have the whole ordeal be carried out so far from any living human being; Walter's screams ripped through the night, but there was no one to hear him apart from the rest of Red John's friends, all of whom were forced to watch as their new leader punished the traitor.

The message to them was clear:

_Red John may be gone, but his work lives on, and _anyone_ who disgraces it will pay…even if it's one of us._

* * *

***But isn't hate merely the result of wounded love? X)**


	9. In a Red Haze

The Red Team got back to work, all official problems resolved. Lisbon, however, had no interest in forgiving Jane for his latest offense. At first, the rest of the team was more on her side, and they were all standoffish with him for a while; it made him feel very alone and very, very guilty. He hadn't meant to hurt anyone this time, really he hadn't! But he'd made a mistake, made a terrible mess, and now he had to pay for it. He accepted the passive aggression without protest or complaint.

Van Pelt was the first to move on. Rigsby followed her, and Cho went back to his casual neutral a little while after that. Jane's plan _had_ worked, after all, and it could have been worse - he could have _actually_ died. Besides, it _was_ sort of impressive, what he'd managed to pull off, his keeping what he knew to himself aside.

But Lisbon, as she had said, was done. She was absolutely done with being Jane's friend, with caring about him - completely done! Every time she even thought about maybe moving on, she felt her scars, remembered what he'd put her through, and her hatred was refueled, blazing again.

And unlike the others, she got worse with time instead of better, especially when everyone else went back to being Jane's friends. She started _wanting_ to hurt him, like she'd let him hurt her for so long.

She started wearing the earrings Red John had made for her, every day, tying her hair back so no one could miss them. Occasionally, if she found an excuse, she would casually refer to Red John's assertions that Jane was "nothing more than a complete and utter moron with a gift that allows him to feign intelligence", expressing that she was of similar opinion. If Jane got in trouble, she avoided him, tried to get the others away from him as well so he'd have to face whatever trouble he was in completely on his own.

Jane didn't fight back. He had brought this on himself, and he knew it. But after a while, the rest of the team started to feel like things were going too far. Yeah, Jane had messed up, but Lisbon's ever-increasing cruelty towards him even months after the fact was becoming really difficult to justify. If they tried to bring it up with her, though, she would get defensive, accuse them of trying to side with someone who would hurt them just as easily as she would hurt him now.

Six months after the incident, it became clear that Lisbon was beyond reason when it came to Jane. She grew colder towards him every day, and he started breaking down under the constant zings that were turning into abuse. Cases started getting iffy, work became a struggle.

Van Pelt was talking to Lisbon the day things really got out of hand: Jane walked by, and without even pausing in what she was saying to Van Pelt, Lisbon abruptly and deliberately tripped him, catching him off-guard and sending him falling into a desk and chairs, getting hit painfully by various blunt objects. Lisbon acted like nothing was happening at all; when Van Pelt turned at the clamor and exclaimed at the sight of Jane on the floor, Lisbon became irritated with her, as though Van Pelt was just daydreaming.

"Jane, are you okay?" Van Pelt exclaimed, ignoring Lisbon now.

Lisbon grabbed her arm. "He's fine," she said disgustedly; "look at me when I'm talking to you."

"Boss…" Van Pelt shook her head, stunned by her superior's behavior - physical violence signified an escalation that needed to be headed off.

"I'm fine, Grace," Jane said softly, picking himself up.

She looked at him. "Jane-"

"It's okay," he told her, gently but certainly.

Lisbon gave him a disgusted glare, then resumed what she had been saying to Van Pelt. Van Pelt gave Jane a worried look, but went back to listening. Jane walked away, likewise acting as though nothing had happened.

And it only got worse from there. Almost more than Lisbon's cruelty, what the team noticed more and more was Jane's submissive response - he wasn't even trying to stand up for himself or defend himself from anything she threw at him. The meaner she got, the more submissive he became, until he almost stopped working entirely, as though he existed only to be Lisbon's punching bag.

How had things gotten this bad? It didn't make any sense. What was Lisbon's problem, and why was Jane so accepting of it all?

They tried talking to Bertram. He in turn tried talking to Lisbon, but she expressed nothing but contempt, not only for Jane, but also for anyone who would stick up for him - based on the things she said, it seemed that she believed Jane would hurt her and anyone else for no reason if ever given the chance, so the fact that she was doing the same to him was totally justified.

They tried talking to Jane, trying to understand what on Earth was happening, but he only told them that it was okay, and refused to say anything more. After being pressed for a while, he relented enough to reveal that he felt he deserved what she was doing to him - he had hurt her a lot more than he had meant to, and he hated himself for it, too.

But still, none of it made any sense. The Red Team's reputation began to tarnish; cases became one-sided battlefields where Lisbon focused more on hurting Jane than on doing her job or letting him do his, though he still refused to even try to resist her. She was pummeling an opponent who refused to fight back, and she _just_ _wouldn't_ _stop_.

Watching from afar, Dove and Red John's other friends slowly went from entertained to confused. Lisbon's cruelty was so excessive, so out-of-place, some started to doubt that even Red John himself would have been okay with what was going on. Of course, none of them spoke to her anymore, but it was just too much; they stopped watching, stopped cheering her on even from a distance.

Even Charlotte was baffled - she had never seen her sister like this, _ever_. As time went on and things got worse, she started backing off, even avoiding Lisbon, first as a reporter, then as her sister - Lisbon was beyond reason, and Charlotte, if she was honest with herself, was afraid of this person Lisbon had become.

It wasn't like Lisbon to hold such a grudge or be so offensive and hateful - she was almost a completely different person now, one nobody wanted to be anywhere near.

So what was happening?

Lisbon couldn't stop thinking about all the nightmares Jane had put her through - even when she tried to think of something else, _anything_ else, she always came back to what he'd done to her, her scars burning as though torn open again. It was as though her mind refused to let her see or think about anything else, forced her to focus on her pain, pick at scabs to keep wounds fresh. The constant hurting made her more and more hateful in turn; it was a vicious cycle that just meant more hurt, not only for Jane, but for Lisbon as well.

And it wouldn't stop. It wasn't even really under her control anymore - there was only hurting and reacting, on both sides. She wasn't enjoying it, not really; the cold smiles she gave when she hurt Jane especially badly weren't joyful. In truth, both sides were falling apart, and neither of them felt inclined to make it stop.

Until, at last, after a year, Jane had had enough. This would go on indefinitely, he accepted that now, and he couldn't take any more. He started making arrangements; one way or another, this needed to end.

~o~

Another case barely closed, and no thanks to Lisbon's bitching. The media wasn't so interested in the Red Team anymore, thanks to what Lisbon had turned them into over the past year - Charlotte wasn't the only one avoiding Lisbon now, not by a long shot.

Jane had spoken to Rigsby, Cho, and Van Pelt about what he was going to do that night; when they went home, all of them were deeply worried about what would become of him. Lisbon tried to leave as well, later, but Jane cut her off, stopping her.

"Lisbon, I need to talk to you," he told her.

"I'm not interested in anything you have to say," she said coldly, and she tried to push him out of the way.

"I know," he said, taking hold of her arm and forcing her back in front of him; she followed his direction, if only because the gesture was so unexpected given how submissive he'd been lately. "That's why I need to talk to you."

"You make no sense, you know that?" she said mockingly.

Jane sighed. "Look, Lisbon, I'm sorry for what I put you through," he began.

"No, you're not," she spat. "You never are."

"I _am_," he said firmly, "and I can't take this anymore."

Lisbon's eyes narrowed. "What's that supposed to mean?" she asked suspiciously.

He had her attention now. "Lisbon, this can't go on," he told her; "I realize you hate me, and you have every right to. I'm sorry for what I did to you. But one way or the other, this has to end. Now. Tonight." He took a breath, then said, "If there is anything I can do, anything at all, to get you to forgive me, tell me now and I'll do it; and if there's nothing, then please, kill me."

Lisbon blinked.

"You won't get in trouble," he told her; "I've talked to the rest of the team, and Bertram - if you kill me, it will be deemed assisted suicide, and you can get back to your life."

"Wait," she said, "you're serious about this? You really want me to kill you? _Literally_ kill you?"

"If you can't forgive me, yes," Jane told her, looking her straight in the eye. "Shoot me between my eyes, if that's the only way to end this." He patted his jacket. "I have a suicide note in my pocket, and I've told the others to hold to it; you won't get in trouble. I just can't do this anymore, and neither can the team or anyone else."

"Why would you…?" Lisbon's suspicious glare sharpened. "This is a trick," she said coldly.

"No, Lisbon, it's not," Jane said; "I'm not bluffing, I swear to you I'm not." And in fact, he wasn't - he really did have a suicide note, wanted it to be called assisted suicide and nothing more. If he had really hurt her that badly, he deserved it, and she had every right to end him…it was even what he wanted, if he had really messed up that much. "I'd do anything else to earn your forgiveness, too - I'd shoot _myself_ if you wanted me to."

"Why would you go that far?" she demanded. "Why would you do that?"

He sighed sadly. "Because I can't live in a world where you hate me," he replied honestly.

She gave him an odd look, one that even he couldn't quite read. There was silence for a long minute.

"I'm sorry, Lisbon," he repeated.

She closed her eyes; Jane couldn't tell if this was because she was going to forgive him or because she was about to draw her gun and shoot him in the head. It didn't really matter by then, anyway - all that mattered was that, whatever she did next, this fight would end here and now.

"No," she said at last.

Jane bowed his head, ready to die.

"…_I'm_ sorry," she finished.

He looked up at her, and was surprised to see tears in her eyes.

"I…" She turned away. "I can't stop thinking about how…how much I've…" She shook her head, her back to him still.

Jane didn't move, didn't speak.

"I didn't survive with Red John for three weeks because I wanted to live," she told him at last in an odd tone of voice. "I didn't care, not really…The reason I held on was because…I knew what my death would do to _you_."

"Oh, Lisbon…" He hadn't known this, and it made things so much clearer; it really was how much she cared about him that had put her through hell repeatedly - not just him, but her _feelings_ for him.

"And there's been so much more…You've nearly died and worse so much, and I've always had time to be afraid for you, and I _told_ you that back when…back before you…" She shook her head again.

Jane said nothing, his heart ripping into pieces.

"When I thought you were dead…I wished I was," she went on at last, her voice barely above a whisper. "What Red John did to me was nothing in comparison to how I felt that night, nothing at all."

"I'm sorry," Jane said. "I knew you'd be upset, but I…didn't realize it would be quite that much."

Lisbon was still.

"I really did think about it," Jane told her. "I didn't know _if_ it might happen, I didn't know _when_ it might happen, I didn't know if I'd be _able_ to make my heart stop without losing consciousness, I didn't know if I'd be able to restart my heart even if I _did_ manage to stop it willingly, I didn't know if I'd survive _to_ make my heart stop…I had no idea what was going to happen, Lisbon - _nothing_ may have been going to happen, for all I knew. I thought it was for the best that I not tell you ahead of time because of that." He bowed his head. "I was wrong. I'm sorry."

"You couldn't have known," she said tonelessly. "I…understand. I just…"

"You've been through a lot because of me," he finished for her, nodding. "I understand that now. I never meant to hurt you, Lisbon, _ever_ - I mean that."

"I'm not sure I believe you," she said.

Jane had no response to this.

There was silence for a long minute.

"If I had told you what was going to happen, I probably would have died," Jane admitted to her at last.

Lisbon said nothing.

"Whether a person's heart shuts down of their will or not, the brain needs oxygen," he told her; "if you hadn't given me CPR that night, I _would_ have died."

"And that's supposed to help me forgive you?" Lisbon asked, a cold edge creeping back into her tone.

"You have a right to know," he replied. "I'm grateful to you…You've saved my life several times, not just that night; if there's anything I can do to make this right, anything at all, I'd be more than happy to do it. I owe you that much and more."

Again, there was a minute of silence.

"I…I'm sorry…for the way things have been. I've been horrible," Lisbon admitted at last. "You scared me almost to death, but…you don't deserve the way I've been treating you. I just couldn't stop hurting…"

"It's okay," Jane lied.

She gave a mortified laugh in spite of it all. "No, it's not," she said.

Jane smiled momentarily himself, despite everything. "Can you ever forgive me?" he asked her.

"I…" She hesitated.

Jane didn't push her.

"I…should be asking _you_ that," she said at last.

"Of course I forgive you," Jane said without hesitation. "I've made your life hell; it's only fair that you did the same to me."

"Not to the extent that I have," Lisbon said.

He couldn't disagree. Instead he said, "I admit I never thought you were capable of being so cruel." He hesitated, then asked, "Why…were you?"

"I don't know," Lisbon sighed. "I couldn't stop thinking about it…My scars wouldn't stop hurting, and I couldn't stop remembering…I felt like you had put me through hell…either because you wanted to, or because you didn't think or care enough to realize you would. But that's not…not the way it was. Was it?" Looking back now, she herself wondered what had happened, what she had turned into and why. It was like looking back on all the time she secretly spent with Red John - it was so clear, in hindsight, how stupid and wrong her behavior had been. Yes, she had been in constant pain, but…

"No," Jane said sincerely, "and I'm sorry I've hurt you so much."

"I forgive you," she said, "and _I'm_ sorry I overreacted." She felt as though an enormous burden had been lifted with these words. This was a grudge she was happy to let go of, and she really wasn't sure why she had clung to it so adamantly. Maybe because she…?

"Can things please go back to normal now?" Jane risked asking.

"I hope so," she said; "I will if you will."

"I will." He smiled. "Good night, Lisbon."

"Good night yourself," she said. She hadn't turned to face him once during the entire conversation.

Jane nodded, then turned and left, leaving her alone.

Lisbon stood still, but there were so many things raging around inside of her…one urge, another, another, fighting for dominance; thoughts, feelings, contradictions in the hundreds…Why had she been so horrid? What did she want?

Her hand went to her necklace.

_I…want…_

She turned; Jane was already walking away. She hesitated, just for a moment, then ran after him.

"Wait!" she called. "Patrick! Wait!"

He stopped and turned to face her. She ran up to him, hesitated for a split second, then wrapped her arms around his head and kissed him. He gave a start, making a surprised sound, then slowly leaned into her and kissed her back, his arms closing around her.

* * *

**I'm sorry, I couldn't think of any NOT-stupid way to write this, so after a couple of days of deliberating, I just had to go with this. For the record, the end bit IS psychologically rational - it's called the spill-over effect, where an extreme of one emotion turns into an extreme of another emotion.**

**And now, I must ask you to wait. I've decided to go ahead with the next chapter, but I just can't make myself write it out right now - self-consciousness issues is causing writer's block. I'll get it up (no pun intended) as soon as I can. Thank you for your patience.**

**And because I don't say it enough: Thank you all for your support for this series, you few dedicated fans; again, I'm so glad to be writing it out at last, and I'm glad to have you all along for the ride with me. :)**


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